Behringer Harvard JV eyes European market.

Behringer Harvard announced that it has invested in a joint venture holding a commercial real estate portfolio of 15 retail and industrial/logistics assets located in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. A pipeline of additional Central European properties has been identified for potential acquisition by the joint venture. The partners in this investment platform include Behringer Harvard Opportunity REIT I, Inc. and St. Wenceslas Property Fund, an investment program managed by Edinburgh-based Hunter Property Fund Management LTD (HPFM). HPFM recently full-cycled its Private Property Fund, an investment program launched in 2002, providing fund investors with a 20.4% internal rate of return.

The joint venture's portfolio consists of 15 retail and industrial properties with anchor tenants including local divisions of multinational retailers and manufacturers with notable credit strength. Global grocery retailers among the portfolio's tenants include the well-known European retailer Carrefour; Tesco, based in the U.K.; Royal Ahold, based in the Netherlands; and Plus, a discount foods division of Tenglemann, based in Germany, which is scheduled to be acquired by Rewe, another German retailer, upon completion of regulatory review. An additional anchor tenant is Unomedical, a global supplier of medical devices based in Denmark.