HIH Invest Real Estate (HIH Invest) has acquired the educational campus at Schmidener Weg 7/Baumschulenweg 2 in Fellbach near Stuttgart for a closed-end special fund. The seller is a subsidiary of Bauknecht Immobilien Holding AG. The Bauknecht Forum has a lettable area of 13,043 square meters as well as 90 outdoor parking spaces and is fully let with the uses of school and kindergarten as well as smaller non-social uses. One of the two main tenants is the Kolping Bildungswerk, which offers the school types Realschule, Allgemeinbildendes Gymnasium and Berufsgymnasium at the site. The other main tenant, SIS Swiss International School Deutschland, currently looks after around 450 children in Fellbach, from kindergarten to primary school to grammar school. The leases in the property have an average remaining term of 21 years.
The neighbouring sports hall and the multi-storey car park can be fully used by the educational institutions in the Bauknecht Forum, even if they are not part of the purchase property. The educational campus is conveniently located directly at the Fellbach regional and S-Bahn station and offers a direct connection to Stuttgart’s main train station with a 15-minute journey. Fellbach, a medium-sized town with almost 50,000 inhabitants in the Rems-Murr district, borders directly on Stuttgart.
The household appliance manufacturer Bauknecht had built the building at Schmidener Weg 7 around 1930, the house at Baumschulenweg 2 around 1960 and used it in various forms. In the early 2000s, the area developed into a private school campus with various educational opportunities. The properties were extensively renovated in 2007 and 2009, followed by some conversions and renovations. For example, a photovoltaic system was retrofitted.
Alexander Eggert, Managing Director of HIH Invest, comments: “Investments in school real estate not only offer stable and long-term cash flows, but also an exceptionally high level of resilience to economic fluctuations. The education sector is a systemically important area with a continuous need for investment. As an investment manager, we rely on the combination of social relevance, predictable rental income, a high level of loyalty of the providers and growing demand for modern educational locations. School real estate is a future-proof investment.”
The legal and tax acquisition review was carried out by Norton Rose Fulbright, the technical and ESG due diligence by Drees & Sommer. Colliers acted as an intermediary.
