A true long-term growth and investment opportunity came up in 2016, when alongside Foncière Atland, AG Real Estate France made a 50 % investment in a portfolio of diversified assets consisting of fifty sites used as bus depots, with a current value of around €170 M.
Since January 2021, AG Real Estate France has been the sole shareholder, with Atland Voisin as the Asset Manager.
This alternative assets class devoted to property assets in the public transport sector offers operators involved in this market a solution to support the development of their property portfolio in France and in Europe, in particular thanks to attractive locations on the outskirts of towns and cities, allowing operators to locate themselves at the barycentre of the areas they serve as part of their mission to delegate public services.
Consisting of offices, a workshop and an area for parking vehicles, the sites are mainly rented via 9-year leases by the leaders of passenger transport in France: Keolis, Transdev and IDFM.
As Thibault Delamain, Director General & Head of Investment and Asset Management at AG Real Estate France explains, ‘bus depots are a particularly interesting alternative class of assets in a context where there are compressing yields on all property assets. This diversified portfolio brings us secure yields, while offering us opportunities to create value at some sites that will be redeveloped. We prefer to support the major public transport operators with the renovation or redevelopment of their existing sites. We will also support them with the construction of new depots and we would like to acquire new sites as part of outsourcing operations.’
Two new acquisitions for AG Real Estate France
More recently, AG Real Estate France extended the scope of the portfolio to railway maintenance operating assets and acquired two sites operated by Colas Rail, a company specialising in the maintenance of railway rolling stock.
The first acquisition is a sale & lease back operation with a fixed term of 18 years with Colas Rail, a company which has operated a rail link site located west of Paris in the town of Les Mureaux, since 1969.
The second acquisition from Colas S.A is a property complex still occupied by Colas Rail by means of a commercial lease with a fixed term of 9 years on a site located in Grenay at the heart of Chesnes international business park (in the municipalities of L’Isle d’Abeau, Saint Quentin Fallavier and Satolas once, southeast of Lyon). This railway maintenance site is ideally located at the heart of one of the top logistics sites in Europe, serving the entire south-east of France and specialising in training, safety for works on railway networks and laying railway tracks.
The two operations account for an investment volume of about € 28 M and will be managed by Fa Reim.
As Marine Tirel happily explains on behalf of the Property Management of the Colas S.A. Group, ‘We’re delighted that we were able to conduct the sale and lease back operation with AGRE. Colas has a property portfolio which reflects its strong presence as close as possible to its clients in all the locations where it operates. Colas is pursuing its property strategy, in particular with the aim of optimising its property portfolio. This operation is a further step in this new approach, which also aims to allow Colas Rail to continue operating the building in the long term.’
‘With these two new acquisitions, we are further strengthening our presence in the transport sites sector and showing our capacity to position ourselves for diversified opportunities that generate long-term cash flows. We’re delighted to be able to support the Colas Rail teams in a developing sector’ concludes Thibault Delamain.
