Real estate services company Avison Young has advised two Canadian pension funds in their acquisition and financing of a mixed-use complex in Cologne, Germany. This marks the company’s first asset management deal outside of North America.

Avison Young principal Amy Erixon notes that the European market “can provide diversification and more attractive risk-adjusted returns than comparable properties in Canada can offer at this point in the cycle.”

The asset is described as a fully-leased office building with an adjacent mixed-use tower in Cologne’s central business district. The property includes 16,687 square metres of leasable area and is located near the University of Cologne and the city’s central retail area.

Global professional services firm KPMG is the asset’s main office tenant. In fact, a majority of the property (14,502 square metres) is devoted to office space, with 410 square metres set aside for retail. In addition to the commercial space, the asset features 11 residential units.

The property was sold by Frankfurt’s Allianz Real Estate Germany GmbH acting on behalf of Allianz Life Insurance, which was represented in the transaction by CBRE.

DekaBank’s real estate lending arm has agreed to provide a long-term debt facility for the property’s acquisition. Terms of the transaction, which was made late last month, were not released.