Categories: News

BrickMark signs purchase agreement for the largest ever real estate transaction paid in tokens of a total volume of over CHF 130 million

  • BrickMark purchases a prime commercial
    building from RFR Holding in the heart of Zurich’s central business district in
    a share
  • A significant part of the purchase price
    will be paid in BrickMark tokens
  • The premium investment property with 1,600
    sqm of space in the heart of Bahnhofstrasse has high redevelopment potential
  • The BrickMark real estate portfolio will
    continue to grow quickly with a pipeline of nealy 1 billion in commercial
    properties mainly in major cities in central europe
  • BrickMark is now positioned as the world’s
    leading blockchain real estate investment firm
  • The management team combines the experience
    of more than a century of real estate investment expertise managing over EUR 15
    billion of property assets

Berlin/Zug – EQS Newswire – 15 January 2020 – BrickMark AG
(“BrickMark”), an innovative, high-growth real estate Investment
company, today announced that it has signed a purchase agreement about the
largest ever real estate purchase using tokens, buying a high profile prime
commercial property on Zurich’s prestigious Bahnhofstrasse. The transaction
volume amounts to over CHF 130 million. The transaction is based on a share
deal and initially BrickMark acquired 80% of the shares of Bahnhofstrasse AG
with a call option on the remaining 20% within 9 months. The seller of the
property is the international real estate investor RFR Holding GmbH
(“RFR”). RFR will remain a 20% shareholder in Bahnhoftstrasse AG and
will lead the redevelopment process. A considerable part of the purchase price
will be paid in BrickMark tokens.

The purchase agreement signed by the two parties opens up new dimensions in
terms of the size and institutional character of token-financed real estate
transactions. “We are breaking new ground for the real estate
industry,” said Stephan Rind, CEO of BrickMark. “There has never been
a token-based real estate transaction of this magnitude. We are implementing
what was once no more than a concept in the real estate industry. This is why
it was so important to us that the real estate and transaction partners were of
the highest quality and reputation.”


Property in a prime location on Bahnhofstrasse – floor space expansion
planned

The property acquired by BrickMark is located at Bahnhofstrasse 52 in central
Zurich, in the heart of the central business district of one of Europe’s most
important financial hubs and along one of the world’s exclusive and most
prestigious luxury shopping boulevards. The property has a lettable space of
more than 1,600 square meters. Most of this is currently used by office
tenants, with only about 15 percent along the ground floor level being used by retailers.
By intelligently redesigning individual areas of the property, retail space
will be increased some six-fold – more than doubling the total annual rental
income of the property – without reducing the existing office capacity. The
official approval process will be initiated immediately and construction work
is scheduled to be completed in approximately 24 months.

“Bahnhofstrasse is one of the top addresses in Europe”, says Rind.
“Being able to acquire on favorable terms a top-quality property in this
location that offers considerable potential for further value creation is a
rare opportunity, especially in today’s market environment. We are delighted to
have purchased this property from RFR Holding, a renowned institutional real
estate investor, in an off-market deal. RFR’s interest in innovation in the
real estate industry was certainly helpful.”

A successful financing round marks the start of further growth with
highly profitable properties

With the acquisition of Bahnhofstrasse 52, BrickMark will finalize a financing
round of over EUR 50 million with international investors. BrickMark sees the
signing of the current real estate transaction as a first step kicking off the
creation of a large scale international real estate portfolio. The company’s investment
strategy targets high-quality commercial properties and value-add portfolios in
top-tier European and North American cities. BrickMark plans to use its own
tokens as the preferred financing instrument. The BrickMark tokens will be
based on the Ethereum blockchain based on the ERC-20 protocol and make use of
smart contracts to establish the detailed rights and entitlements of the token
holders. These will also include clearly defined claims by the token holders
for recurring payments from the rental income and participation in the value
growth of the portfolio.


Tokenization enables higher standards of transparency and compliance

BrickMark is committed to the state-of-the-art transparency and reporting
levels of the international real estate market. The company has already been
accepted as a member of EPRA (the European Public Real Estate Association),
which represents the leading real estate investment companies across the
continent. BrickMark reports incude key performance metrics consistent with EPRA
best practice guidelines , its accounting is in accordance with international
accounting standards and has adopted a governance code adhering to global
institutional investor standards.

The BrickMark team comprises well-known and successful real estate
managers and investors

At BrickMark, a well known team of senior industry professionals with
outstanding individual track records in the international real estate
investment industry pool their expertise and their networks to promote the
success of the company. The team includes Stephan Rind, Mark Abramson, Dr.
Luciano Gabriel and John Nacos. Stephan Rind, CEO of BrickMark, is best known
as the visionary founder of Colonia Real Estate AG in 2003, one of the first
publicly traded real estate companies in Germany, building it into the the
third-largest listed residential property company with a multibillion euro
portfolio value before it was successfully acquired by TAG Immobilien AG. Mark
Abramson was most recently a partner at Heitman LLC, a leading US-based
investment firm, responsible for billions of dollars of investment in the
global real estate sector on behalf of institutional clients. Dr. Luciano
Gabriel, BrickMark’s Chairman of the Advisory Board, spent over 15 years in
management positions in the Swiss financial industry, as CFO and then CEO of
PSP Swiss Property AG, the second largest listed real estate company in
Switzerland owning more than CHF 7billion of commercial property. After holding
senior management positions in the mortgage and real estate divisions of
Merrill Lynch, John Nacos, BrickMark advisor, was EMEA and global head of
commercial real estate at Deutsche Bank and was until recently a member of the
supervisory board of CA Immo AG, Austria, one of the largest commercial
property owners in Europe.


“We will combine real estate assets with the benefits of
blockchain.”

As an innovativor in real estat investment, BrickMark is combining the asset
value and profitability benefits of this asset class (with total value greater
than the combined value of global bond and stock markets) with the
technological possibilities of smart contracts in blockchain and tokenization
to create a more efficient, more functional and more fit-for-purpose form of
capital designed specifically for the needs of today’s global institutional
investor

“BrickMark has set out to establish an additional form of capital in
the institutional real estate market using blockchain technology,” said
Stephan Rind, CEO of BrickMark. ” We are proud to have carried out the
largest transaction to date in the real estate industry worldwide using tokens
as a means of payment. In RFR, we have an international transaction partner
with a double-digit billion-dollar portfolio of premium real estate, including
many classics in the history of architecture. As we have a substantial pipeline
of other high-quality properties to add to our real estate investment
portfolio, we see this transaction very much as the first stage of our growth
trajectory.”

Dr. Alexander Koblischek, Managing Director of RFR Management GmbH: “We
gladly accepted the Brickmark tokens as part of the purchase price. We assume
that digital financial instruments will also significantly gain in importance
in the real estate sector in the future. The current transaction may have an
icebreaker function for the sector in terms of its volume and institutional
character”.


Webcast / Conference Call on 15 January 2020

BrickMark AG invites media representatives and institutional investors to a
conference call with accompanying presentation on the internet. The CEO of
BrickMark, Stephan Rind, will explain details on the transaction, the
perspectives of the company as well as real estate tokenization.


The conference call will take place on 15 January 2020 at 11.15 am. The
following dial-in data apply:

DE: +4969201744220

CH: +41445806522

UK: +442030092470

USA: +18774230830

The necessary PIN code is available for those interested under jpommer@edicto.de or by
phone under +49 69 90550557.

You can follow the presentation online under the following link:
https://webcasts.eqs.com/brickmark20200115/no-audio

A replay of the webcast will be available on the website of BrickMark under www.brickmark.net.

About BrickMark

BrickMark,
“The Blockchain Real Estate Company”, is an international real estate
investor and real estate asset manager, and a pioneer in the tokenization of
real estate. The company, in which high-caliber managers from the real estate
industry pool their expertise and networks, has begun to build a real estate
portfolio with a focus on high-quality, highly profitable residential and
commercial properties in Europe and North America. The company is using a new
form of digital security, the BrickMark token, as an integral part of the
capital-raising process. The company thus combines the asset value and
profitability benefits of real estate as an asset class with the technological
possibilities of smart contracts in the blockchain. Like listed real estate
companies, BrickMark embraces high transparency levels and compliance with
international valuation standards. BrickMark is a member of EPRA and has offices
in Zug, Zurich and Berlin. www.brickmark.net

Miscw.com

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