The German fund will acquire the main property of the Cornerstone complex, which will maintain ownership of the rest. Among other clients, it houses the headquarters of the multinational Henkel.
Investment in offices in Barcelona is reactivated. After a first quarter with a cold market, the big funds are betting again on the Catalan capital, especially 22@. This is the case of the Union Investment fund, which is in advanced negotiations with UBS for the purchase of one of the buildings in the Cornerstone complex for around 60 million euros, according to market sources to EXPANSIÓN.
Cornerstone is an office complex located at the crossroads between Bilbao and Camí Antic de València streets, near the Parc Central de Poblenou. In total, it has an area of 21,000 square meters divided into three buildings: A (2,857 square meters), B (7,846 meters) and C (10,010 meters). The facilities have the Leed Gold sustainability certification.
Union Investment Partners intends to purchase only the largest building. If the entire office complex were sold at the same price as this operation, its market value could be around 120 million euros. The operation has been mediated by Cushman
The Swiss fund UBS acquired the complex in 2015 after paying 80 million euros to Benson Elliot. The origin of Cornerstone dates back to 2009, when Banco Sabadell took a plot of land from the Lar group and Morgan Stanley as payment for the cancellation of a mortgage. Two years later, the Catalan bank managed to sell the site and a turnkey project to the Benson Elliot fund for 50 million euros. The person in charge of promoting the complex was Solvia, at that time a real estate subsidiary of the financial institution.
Building C has nine floors and is currently 100% occupied. The most prominent client is the German multinational Henkel, which occupies six plants. The manufacturer of cleaning and personal care products moved into the offices at the beginning of 2015, after selling its historic headquarters in Eixample.
Barcelona registered an investment of 150 million euros in offices in the first three months of 2022, according to data from the consulting firm CBRE. The figure is 28.5% lower than that obtained in the first quarter of 2021 and is clearly lower than the figures of the last three quarters, with investments of more than 300 million euros. Among the most relevant operations, the sale of Pallars 193 (60 million euros) and Provença 206 (30 million) stand out.
However, the slowdown in the first quarter was circumstantial and, since then, several relevant operations have been closed, such as the sale of the Imagina building (120 million euros) or the Step Up building (35 million). The forecast is for the market to reach cruising speed in the coming months.
