Round Hill Capital (“Round Hill”), a leading specialist real estate investment and asset management firm, announces that funds advised by Round Hill have completed the acquisition of a residential portfolio with 114 units in Hamburg, Germany.  This is the first transaction focused on the acquisition of residential portfolios in 15 leading greater metropolitan areas in Germany, which exhibit strong macro fundamentals, favourable housing demand/supply dynamics and robust economic performance.

Round Hill Capital is one of Europe’s leading accommodation investment management specialists, with over 53,000 units currently under management across Europe.

Round Hill is returning to the German residential market having previously acquired, built up and managed a portfolio of 50,000 residential units in Germany, commencing in 2007 with its acquisition of Vitus Group. Prior to the merger of the Vitus Group portfolio into a large listed real estate company, Round Hill made a number of significant improvements to the Vitus portfolio, including centralizing and consolidating the management of the entire portfolio into a single in-house management platform. This led to an increase in EBITDA by over 20% and decreased vacancy on the portfolio by 30%, simultaneously increasing rent by an average of over 2.5% per year.

Round Hill Capital’s advisors to the transaction were Simmons & Simmons.

Commenting on the transaction, Michael Bickford, founder and CEO of Round Hill Capital, said:

“Round Hill has a well-established and successful investment track record and operational expertise in residential housing across Europe and in particular Germany, where our interest began 10 years ago in 2007, and we are pleased to make this acquisition. We look forward to actively managing and repositioning the portfolio and continue to be active in the German market for other portfolios and assets with similar value characteristics.

We believe the German residential market benefits from strong macro/micro-economic trends and favorable supply/demand fundamentals. Taken together with our proven investment and operating expertise, we look forward to building a substantial residential platform in key cities across Germany supplementing our residential businesses in other European markets.”