KKR and Palm Capital have increased their investment in Ireland’s industrial and logistics market with the purchase for €17 million of Cloverhill Industrial Estate in Clondalkin, Dublin 22.
The sale represents the third and final disposal of the assets offered for sale last November as part of the €48 million “Novelty Portfolio”, a mix of industrial and office properties distributed across three locations in Dublin and Galway.
The portfolio comprised Cloverhill Industrial Estate, Clondalkin, Dublin 22 (guide price €17 million), Mervue Business and Technology Park, Galway (guide price €19.5 million) and Swords Enterprise Park (guide price €11.5 million). Taken together, the offering made up about 447,000sq ft (41,500sq m) of accommodation.
In the case of Cloverhill Industrial Estate, KKR and Palm Capital have secured ownership of some 210,000sq ft of industrial and warehousing accommodation. At the time of being offered for sale, some 85 per cent of the facility was occupied by Primeline VNE while the remaining 15 per cent was occupied by Broderick Bros Limited on a lease that offers a rent review in November 2023 and a mutual break option in November 2025.
KKR is a global investment firm that manages multiple alternative asset classes, including private equity, credit and real assets, with $491 billion (€503 billion) in assets under management. Palm Logistics is an affiliate of Palm Capital, a pan-European real-estate private-equity specialist with extensive experience in the urban and last-mile logistics sector across Ireland, Scandinavia and Spain. In terms of their involvement to date in the Irish market, the partners’ most significant investment came last year and saw them pay €195 million for the Core portfolio, a collection of 73 industrial and logistics assets distributed across Dublin and the GDA. The portfolio is 97 per cent let to a range of occupiers, including investment-grade rating tenants. Its largest single asset is the 51-hectare (125-acre) Naas Enterprise Park in Kildare.
The news of KKR and Palm Capital’s acquisition of Cloverhill Industrial Estate comes just weeks after another European investor, M7 Real Estate, completed its purchase for just under €11.5 million of Swords Enterprise Park in north Dublin. The scheme, which overlooks the M1 motorway, extends to 79.000sq ft and comprises 61 industrial/office units arranged over eight blocks.
In August, meanwhile, French investor Corum Asset Management upped its overall investment in Ireland to more than €320 million when it paid €19.4 million for units 20-29 at Mervue Business & Technology Park in Galway. The subject property extends across a total area of 160,000sq ft on a site of 7.09 acres and comprises one manufacturing unit leased to HID Global Ireland Teoranta and guaranteed by HID Global Corporation, and one office unit, leased to Avaya International Sales Limited.
Taken together, the respective sales of the three assets within the Novelty Portfolio have secured in excess of €47.4 million, or just under the €48 million Siobhan Convery of selling agent Harvey had been guiding when she brought them to the market last November.
