GII forays into US real estate market

ABU DHABI — Gulf Islamic Investments LLC, a UAE- based Islamic financial services company, has announced that it advised/ acquired on behalf of its Investors, a Class A Commercial Building ‘3501 Corporate Parkway’ situated in Center Valley (Allentown) Pennsylvania, United States of America. The building was constructed in 2006, on approximately 60,000 square feet plot of land and has net leasable area of 178,330 square feet. The building is fully let out to investment grade tenant Dun & Bradstreet Corporation for a term of approximately 11 years. It is the largest corporate office of Dun & Bradstreet. Dun & Bradstreet is the leading provider of commercial information and business insights in the world, having database of more than 240 million business records in over 190 countries. The building was acquired for approximately $48 million with part of the acquisition financed through a 5 year loan from a reputed international bank. The deal was structured in sharia compliant manner. “We are very enthused to have made our first foray in real estate in the United States, one of most matured and regulated real estate markets in the world”, said Mohammed Al-Hassan, Co-founder and Co-CEO, GII. He adds, “We are continuously scouting for interesting real estate investment opportunities for generating superior risk adjusted returns for our valuable investors. In line with the vision of the company, we have embarked on a journey to create long term wealth for our investors”. Pankaj Gupta, Co-founder and Co-CEO of Gulf Islamic Investments, said: “It is a big achievement for us, as in a span of 8 months we have successfully entered in US and UK real estate markets. GII continues to expand its real estate investments with a particular focus on income yielding investment opportunities. We have plans to acquire high quality income yielding real estate assets in US, UK, Germany and other parts of Europe and also to invest selectively in attractive value add development opportunities in these regions.” — SG