Ashurst advised Warburg-HIH Invest Real Estate (Warburg-HIH Invest) on taking over development sites "West 1 to 3" of the large-scale project "MesseCity Köln". The takeover took place within the framework of a club deal for institutional investors. The sellers are the joint venture partners STRABAG Real Estate (STRABAG) and ECE Projektmanagement (ECE). According to Warburg-HIH Invest, the volume of the transaction amounts to more than EUR 350 million.

The new buildings of Zurich Group are being built on the three development sites in the western part of the new quarter with a total office space of c. 60,000 square metres. As of 2019, c. 2,700 employees of Zurich Versicherung will be moving into their new offices. In total, the large-scale project MesseCity Köln covers c. 135,000 square metres of gross building area on a c. 5.4-hectare plot situated in Köln Deutz on the right bank of the Rhine.

The cross-practice Ashurst team from Frankfurt and Munich was led by the real estate partner Dr Liane Muschter. Partners Dr Henrik Theismann (Real Estate), Jan Krekeler (Corporate), Dr Detmar Loff (Investment Law) and Ute Zinsmeister (Anti-trust law, Munich) also advised. They were supported by counsel Nicolas Deuerling and associate Sven Nickel (Real Estate), senior associate Jan Kupfer and associates Jan van Kisfeld, Anna-Maria Krekeler and Markus Hiebel (Corporate), senior associate Holger Mlynek (Procurement law) as well as senior associate Dr Maria Held (Anti-trust law, Munich).

Warburg-HIH Invest offers, as real estate investment manager, the entire spectrum of national and international real estate investments for institutional investors. It is one of the leading managers of real estate special AIFs in Germany and with real estate assets of more than EUR 5.5 billion has a comprehensive track record in conceiving and implementing individually tailor-made investment solutions.