Press Release •

28th July 2020

• Beiraweg 11 and 15 are both located in Atlas Park in the port of Amsterdam, with quick access to the city centre and Schiphol airport

• Both buildings are fully occupied by single tenants in line with Crossbay’s focus on last-mile locations near gateway cities

• The Benelux countries are a key target growth market for Crossbay, with the platform acquiring 16 assets in the region over the past eight months

Leading private equity real estate investment manager Meyer Bergman has purchased two properties in a logistics park in the port of Amsterdam for its urban logistics platform Crossbay.

Named Beiraweg 11 and 15, both assets are fully occupied to a single tenant and collectively provide over 21,000 sq. m. of warehousing space within 10 minutes’ travel to Amsterdam city centre or Schiphol Airport.

The Dutch logistics market is rapidly growing due to strong combined demand from last mile operators looking for facilities to serve the country’s densely populated city-regions as well long haul and international forwarders wanting to take advantage of the Netherlands’ position as a key trade and shipping hub in Europe.

Fashion and lifestyle industries’ supply chain manager Bleckmann is located in the warehouse on Beiraweg 11 while homewares wholesaler Riviera Maison is located in Beiraweg 15, which contains a showroom and office space.

The seller Arc-en-Ciel was advised by Beaufort Bogaard Vastgoed (commercial) and Van Zinnicq Bergmann (legal). The buyer Meyer Bergman was advised by 1530 RealEstate (commercial), Rutgers & Posch (legal), Deloitte (tax) and CBRE (technical).

Arjan Kooman, joint head of Crossbay Benelux, said: “Despite the challenges posed by COVID-19 we have managed to acquire two quality assets close to Amsterdam city centre with excellent multimodal transport links – attributes that will prove highly appealing to any future occupier.”

Roy Erkelens, joint head of Crossbay Benelux, added: “Today’s announcement further strengthens our presence in the Benelux region, where we have already secured a significantly sized portfolio thanks to high levels of acquisition activity over the past eight months.”

Theacquisitions follow the launch of Crossbay by Meyer Bergman in May this year. The logistics platform, which is the first to focus specifically on single-tenant distribution centres serving gateway cities across Europe, is targeting €2bn in total value.

Crossbay has its own corporate structure separate from Meyer Bergman and is led by Marco Riva, formerly of Blackstone’s ‘big box’ warehouse business Logicor.

The platform’s Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg) portfolio is c.105,000 sq. m in size, representing over €90 million in assets under management by total value.

Two of Europe’s largest conurbations – Randstad Netherlands, which includes Amsterdam and Rotterdam, and Belgium’s Flemish Diamond, which includes Brusssels and Antwerp – are located in the region.

The region is one of Europe’s wealthiest markets, with a household consumption totalling over €600 billion in 2019 according to research consultants Oxford Economics, with the Benelux countries also having some of the highest levels of online shopping in Europe.

Analysis by property advisors CBRE reveals that the Netherlands is the most advanced market for online sales on the continent, with a 2019 market share of almost 15%, which is expected to increase to 25% by 2024. Belgium follows with a 2019 online market share of 12%, which is predicted to grow towards 20% by 2024.

Marco Riva, head of Crossbay and logistics at Meyer Bergman, said: “The Benelux region will continue to be a key geographical focus for Crossbay. All three countries have wealthy, highly urbanised and increasingly online consumer bases, while local last-mile logistics markets are all marked by low vacancy rates driven by a growing imbalance between demand and supply.

“Across Europe demand for urban logistics space is soaring, with COVID-19 accelerating the growth of e-commerce. While there will always be a place for physical retail and footfall will increase as social distancing restrictions are lifted, we expect online shopping rates to stabilise above their pre-pandemic levels.

“Crossbay will allow institutional investors such as pension funds to benefit from this structural change by creating a platform of sufficient scale that will enable them to easily gain exposure to last-mile logistics, a sector many have found difficult to enter due to small lotand transaction sizes.”