Blackstone has dominated headlines in the past week with its record-breaking corporate deals and the close of its biggest European fund to date, but records are also being broken in other corners of the real estate market.
On Friday, PropertyEU's sister publication EuroProperty broke the news in its recently launched weekly edition that UK investor Arlington has teamed up with Australia's AMP Capital to buy Campus Living Villages, a €1.3 bn student accommodation platform in Sydney.
Meanwhile on the European Continent, Irish investor Derek Quinlan is on the verge of making a remarkable return to European property, having put together a similar sized deal for the Finance Tower in Brussels from Dutch company Breevast.
There are other big deals brewing on the Continent. Just a week ago, EuroProperty revealed that Austrian investor and developer CA Immo is planning to put Tower 185 in Frankfurt on the market for a price likely to exceed €800 mln. The sales process, which CA Immo has now confirmed, would be the largest single-asset transaction in German history.
A big deal looms elsewhere in Germany: Korea's National Pension Service has appointed Eastdil Secured and BNP Paribas Real Estate to sell eight buildings on the famous Potsdamer Platz in Berlin for more than €1 bn.
This slew of large, record-breaking office deals follow hard on the heels of the biggest office deal so far this year in the UK, in which CC Land is paying €1.35 bn for the Leadenhall office tower in London, known as the 'Cheesegrater'. Earlier this week it emerged that two European banks with strong Asia connections have won the deal to finance the building alongside Bank of China, on behalf of its Hong Kong buyer.
HSBC and ING are part of a three-way club with the Chinese bank which has provided more than £600 mln (€692 mln) for CC Land’s £1.15 bn acquisition of The Leadenhall Building, known as the Cheesegrater. The acquisition price was notable for its record, historically low yield of 3.4% for a City of London asset.