Singapore-headquartered real-estate investment trust Mapletree Investments has completed its purchase for around €167 million of the Nova Atria office campus at Sandyford in south Dublin.
The closure of the deal brings Mapletree's investment to date in the Irish office market to €407 million. Earlier this year, the company paid €240 million to secure ownership of the Sorting Office, the 19,510sq m (210,000sq ft) office scheme being developed in the Dublin docklands by Pat Crean's Marlet Property Group.
Mapletree’s acquisition of the Nova Atria for €167 million represents a significant development for Dublin’s suburban office market. Up to now, Asian investors have tended to deploy their capital within the city’s central business district and docklands area.
Extending to a total area of around 32,000sq ft, Nova Atria comprises two office blocks. The buildings - Nova Atria North and South were known previously as the Atrium and had been occupied by Microsoft and other companies.
Nova Atria was acquired by its previous owner, US private equity giant Blackstone in 2014 from a consortium of private investors for a figure reportedly in the region of € 100 million. Having purchased the scheme, Blackstone carried out substantial refurbishment works on Nova Atria South before letting all 15,939sq m (172,121sq ft) of space at the building to Facebook earlier this year. Nova Atria North meanwhile is let to a number of tenants.
Blackstone’s sale of the property to Mapletree was handled by Kyle Rothwell of CBRE.
Mapletree Investments is a significant player in the global real-estate market with operations in the US, Australia, Japan, China, India and the UK. The company owns and manages some € 30 billion of properties including office, retail residential and industrial property, as well as student accommodation.