Carlyle sells Hamburg building to Germany’s Deka

(Reuters) – U.S. private equity firm Carlyle Group [CYL.UL] said on Thursday it had sold an office and commercial building in Hamburg to Deka Immobilien, Germany’s largest manager of property funds, for an undisclosed sum.

The eight-storey Freshfields House, which is mainly rented to international law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, was completed on Dec. 1, Carlyle said in a statement.

“As this sale demonstrates, our strategy of developing high-quality properties in dynamic regional markets continues to be successful even in a more difficult economic environment,” Carlyle Europe Real Estate managing director Wulf Meinel said.

German prime office space looks set to continue its bleak form in 2010 and scrape along the bottom of its trough before recovering in late 2011 or 2012, property advisors say. [ID:nLC341723]

Carlyle Europe Real Estate Partners have launched three funds in Europe since 2001, totalling 3.4 billion euros ($5.14 billion) of assets under management, and invests in office, retail and logistics property portfolios, it said. (Reporting by Daryl Loo, editing by Will Waterman) ($1=.6617 Euro) (See www.reutersrealestate.com for the global service for real estate professionals from Reuters) ((daryl.loo@thomsonreuters.com; +44 (0)207 542 5228; Reuters Messaging: daryl.loo.reuters.com@reuters.net))