Goldman Sachs Buys Foreigners’ Village
Goldman Sachs, whose investments in real estate around the world have exceeded $23 billion, as made its first acquisition in Russia. Whitehall Street Real Estate Funds, which is managed by Goldman Sachs, is now the owner of Pokrovskie Hills enclave in northwest Moscow. Only employees of embassies and transnational corporations rent housing there. The fund bought the cottage settlement from the American firm AIG Global Real Estate for about $300 million.
Pokrovskie Hills was built by the American developer Hines in 2002 especially for foreigners. It is located near the Khimky reservoir and Pokrovskoe-Glebovo Park. The settlement is made up of 207 townhouses of 45,600 sq. m. each. AIG Global, a subsidiary of the AIG insurance company that owns property worth $24.7 billion in 50 countries, bought the settlement in 2006 for an estimated $200 million.
Observers estimate that the net operating income of the settlement in 2007 was $20.3 million, and that sum will rise to $25.3 million by 2011. A townhouse in Pokrovskie Hills is more expensive than an apartment in downtown Moscow. A three-bedroom townhouse costs $12,000 a month. Four bedrooms run $17,000-18,000, and five bedrooms cost $24,000 per month. An elite three-room apartment within Moscow’s Garden Ring costs $7700, and four or five rooms cost $10,800.
It was the first Western investment in a Russian housing project when AIG bought Pokrovskie Hills in 2006 and it remained the only one until its sale to Gold man Sachs, although Westerners have invested in many business and shopping centers. Pokrovskie Hills is also Goldman Sachs’ first investment in Russian real estate.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Aug. 01, 2008
|
