SFO Capital Partners and FOM Real Estate establish partnership for a landmark mixed-use value-add scheme in Stuttgart City-West

London/Heidelberg, 22 June 2022 – SFO Capital Partners, a London-based global real estate investor and investment manager, and FOM Real Estate, a German development specialist and asset manager, have formed a strategic partnership for the acquisition and repositioning of commercial assets in Germany. The pilot scheme is a prominent large-scale mixed-use asset located in Stuttgart, offering the opportunity for a full restructuring and refurbishment.  

The 9-storey high rise landmark building is located in the Western inner city, directly situated on top of the underground suburban train station “Schwabstrasse” comprising of a leasable space of more than 16,000sqm. SFO Capital Partners and FOM Real Estate envisage to unlock value-enhancement potential by implementing a new architectural and usage concept that will appeal to Grade A tenants.

FOM Real Estate acquired the property back in early 2021, by way of a sale-and-lease-back transaction. SFO Capital Partners now steps in subsequently as majority investor and unit shareholder of a closed-end fund that got incorporated recently. FOM Invest, as a German regulated KVG, is assigned to run the operations on behalf of the fund.  

Mohamad Abouchalbak, CEO at SFO Capital Partners, said: “We are thrilled to partner and collaborate with FOM on this outstanding real estate asset in Stuttgart, which offers an excellent opportunity to leverage on our proven capabilities to successfully identify and implement value enhancement initiatives. The redevelopment will also incorporate exemplary ESG standards in line with our firm’s long-term responsible investing commitments.”

Benjamin Koch, Head of Business Development Europe at SFO Capital Partners, added: “The transaction in our view is providing a superior risk-adjusted return profile in the heart of a German TOP7 city. It underpins again our strong strategic ambition to further expand our footprint in the German market which is a key geography for us providing stable fundamentals and significant value-add potential.”      

Prof. Reinhard Walter, Managing Partner FOM Real Estate Group, said: “The partnership with SFO Capital Partners is an important strategic step for us. The cooperation will allow us to further expand our business in the future and take advantage of opportunities even more. We are very pleased that we have succeeded in winning a well-known international investor for a German fund product. In addition to the cooperation with SFO, we have succeeded in gaining another institutional investor from the foundation sector in Germany. This shows once again that sustainable value-add-investments are more in demand than ever.”  

Dr. Bernd Wieberneit, Managing Director FOM Invest GmbH, amended: “Within the refurbishing and repositioning process, we are turning an outdated existing building into a high-quality rental property in the best inner-city location. This project is ideal for our manage-to-ESG-approach, which matches the FOM-DNA perfectly. In this context we offer investors ESG-compliant investment opportunities within the framework of an article-8- or article-9-fund.”

About FOM Real Estate Group: FOM Real Estate is a manager-owned German company with a successful track record of 25 years in the property development and asset management business. Since 1997, FOM has successfully completed property developments in an aggregate volume of 4 billion euros. Among the investment partners of FOM are renowned institutional investors from inside and outside Germany. FOM Invest, the AIFM arm of the FOM Group, designs and launches special property funds in addition to seizing investment opportunities via individual mandates or club deals. FOM Invest is a fully licensed AIF manager (German “KVG”) under the German Capital Investment Act (KAGB). In the time since 2020, FOM Invest has already launched three investment asset pools in a combined volume of over 300 million euros.