Crossbay expands into Poland

The two assets, situated in prime locations in the Polish capital Warsaw and Poland’s third largest city Łódź, represent almost 100,000 sq m of warehousing space. Both sites were acquired from Panattoni Europe for an undisclosed sum.

Crossbay focuses specifically on single-user distribution centres in locations no more than a 90-minute journey to the centre of the nearest city. It stretches across Europe and the 600,000 sq m portfolio hosts tenants such as FedEx, DHL, and Amazon. Crossbay is backed by private equity real estate investment manager MARK.

In December 2020, MARK announced a successful capital raise for Crossbay, securing €550m in equity commitments from a global range of investors. Investors included the Townsend Group, CBRE GI, Credit Suisse, Nuveen and QInvest LLC.

The fundraise was then followed by a €400m debt facility from investment bank Citi in January 2021 to help further fund Crossbay's growth and European expansion.

The properties

Panattoni Park Warsaw City VII  is an undeveloped plot possessing great connection links to the capital’s city centre, and will provide c. 61,000 sq. m. of high quality logistics space once completed. Panattoni Europe will act as development manager, with practical completion expected in 2022.

Panattoni Park Łódź City IX is a multi-let urban logistics asset situated in the heart of Łódź city centre, and is currently fully occupied by eight tenants including Rhenus Logistics, DSV and Wellpack. The c. 38,000 sq m scheme is an A-class logistics facility with a certified BREEAM rating of VERY GOOD.

Marco Riva, Head of Crossbay and Logistics at MARK, comments: “Our entrance into Poland through this double acquisition of two prime assets demonstrates our ambition to become Europe’s leading urban logistics platform.

“Despite the ever-growing weight of capital looking to enter Europe’s last-mile logistics markets, we continue to see opportunities for value creation. By leveraging our network of on-the-ground teams, we can source attractively priced opportunities and take a hands-on approach to asset management.

“We see potential to develop the Crossbay platform further, expanding into new geographies and sub-sectors as part of MARK’s multi-platform strategy that allows institutional investors to access portfolios of scale across different asset classes.”