Immo-Flash

Dear Reader,

An extraordinary year is coming to a close. A year marked by the Covid-19 pandemic, a year like none of us have ever experienced before.

Like many others, our employees had to shift work to home from one day to the next; most team members haven’t seen each other for almost ten months now, having had to cancel one event after another, meetings unable to take place physically throughout the year, and much more. But there is also a lot of good news to report; such as UBS «Sima»¹ successfully completing its planned issuance of around CHF 203 million this spring despite the very uncertain market conditions and placed all new units on the market. In the fall, UBS Direct Urban¹ followed with a CHF 86 million issuance, which was accomplished with equal success. Contrary to expectations, the transaction market was also exceedingly eventful leading to over 20 acquisitions in 2020 with a volume of well over CHF 300 million (as of mid-December) – a tremendous success!

Once again this year, all our eight real estate investment products participated in the GRESB Real Estate Assessment and impressed with top sustainability ratings yet again. All real estate investment products were awarded 4 and 5 stars in the rating of existing properties, and even 5 stars each in the construction projects rating. In addition, UBS Direct Urban took first place in the Switzerland Diversified category for the second year running!

Finally, at the beginning of December we announced that Real Estate Switzerland will be assuming the management of the Residentia real estate fund into its portfolio as of February 1, 2021. The Residentia fund which is listed has an investment focus in the Ticino region.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for the trust you have placed in us again in 2020.

The entire team at Real Estate Switzerland wishes you and your loved ones peaceful holidays and a successful and above all healthy new year.

Dr. Daniel Brüllmann

Head of Real Estate DACH

UBS «Foncipars»¹ acquires a new project to construct a residential and commercial building in Crissier…

The planned residential and commercial building in Crissier in the canton of Vaud will house the polyclinic already located on the site as well as additional commercial space and 28 new apartments. In the first stage, the first component of the building with the new space for the polyclinic (around 600 m², leased on a long-term basis) will be constructed and once they have occupied their new space the old building will be demolished and the second component of the property including a garage will be completed. Completion of the entire project with an investment volume of around CHF 20 million is scheduled for summer 2024.

… and a new residential construction project in Bussigny in collaboration with UBS Direct Residential¹

On December 15, UBS «Foncipars» and UBS Direct Residential jointly acquired a new residential project with four apartment buildings and a total of 87 apartments in Bussigny in the canton of Vaud. The real estate investment products are each acquiring two buildings, separated by an access road and autonomous from each other. To meet the sustainability constituent of Real Estate Switzerland, the properties have been Minergie Eco certified and supply heat production via geothermal heat exchangers and heat pumps. The total investment volume is around CHF 54 million.

The webcasts on the annual financial statements of the two investment groups UBS AST-IS and UBS AST-KIS are available on our website. The fund managers Patric Caillat (UBS AST-IS) and Christian Spiess (UBS AST-KIS) provide insight into the most important events of the past financial year as well as an outlook on the new financial year that has just begun.

Both products achieved excellent results for the year ending September 30, 2020: UBS AST-IS, for example, showed a very solid investment return of 4.7% and increased its portfolio volume by 3.7% to CHF 2.37 billion. Despite a persistently challenging market environment, UBS AST-KIS achieved a solid performance of 4.1% and increased its portfolio volume from CHF 688.1 million to CHF 711.4 million, reflecting a 3.4% increase.

Our Sustainability Report 2019/2020 has been published in German!

Watch the short video by Daniela Jorio, Sustainability Manager at RE-CH, to learn more about what to expect in the report.

We hope you enjoy browsing through and reading our Sustainability Report.

Do you know about our real estate investment products and do you want insight into these products? Find out more in the latest issue of our Immo-Update. Once again, you can find a variety of interesting articles on our eight real estate investment products. The outlook on the Swiss real estate market by our research specialist Brice Hoffer as well as the results of our representative tenant survey in the Focus/Insight section are also included.

Happy reading!

1 UBS Anfos = UBS (CH) Property Fund - Swiss Residential Anfos, UBS Foncipars = UBS (CH) Property Fund - Léman Residential Foncipars, UBS Sima = UBS (CH) Property Fund - Swiss Mixed Sima, UBS Swissreal = UBS (CH) Property Fund - Swiss Commercial Swissreal, UBS Direct Residential = UBS (CH) Property Fund – Direct Residential, UBS Direct Urban = UBS (CH) Property Fund – Direct Urban, UBS AST-IS = UBS AST Real Estate Switzerland, UBS AST-KIS = UBS AST Commercial Real Estate Switzerland