Barings, one of the world’s largest diversified real estate investment managers, has acquired, off-market, three logistics properties in the north east of Italy, through an Italian real estate fund.

The assets form part of a wider six-building portfolio, totalling 96,000sqm of logistics space, which has been acquired by Barings over the last two years.

The first of the newly acquired assets is an 11,000sqm warehouse, which has been converted into a negative cold storage space and is let on a long-term lease to Unifreddo Srl, a cold storage logistics specialist, to enable it to double its capacity in the region. The property is located in Isola Rizza, in the heart of the Veneto region, 20km from the city of Verona.

The remaining two assets are located in San Giorgio and are 46,000sqm and 18,000sqm of Grade-A logistics space. Both warehouses are situated in Mantova, which is located in the logistics sub-market of Verona, a sought after and growing logistics hub due to its favourable position at the intersection between the East-West and North-South European Core Network Corridors.   Marco Corti, managing director, real estate country head – Italy at Barings, says: “In Italy alone, we have acquired a total of 250,000sqm of logistics space and secured a pipeline of a further five transactions totalling 250,000sqm of logistics warehouses as we continue to expand our logistics platform in Italy in the near future.”