A view of Twin City Tower in Bratislava, Slovakia, the first real estate asset to be taken over by Korean firms, the consortium of NHIS and Mirae Asset Daewoo in East Europe. (Photo: NHIS)

NH Investment & Securities Co. and Mirae Asset Daewoo Co. participated in a 120 million euro ($134 million) acquisition of an Amazon-leased building in Slovakia as limited partners. The deal marks the first entry by South Korean capital into the Slovak real estate market.

Online retailer Amazon is the main tenant under a 10-year lease.

Mirae Asset Daewoo and NH Investment committed undisclosed amounts to a fund launched for the purchase for expected annual returns of 8%, according to real estate sources on June 18. The expected returns for a five-year investment period include currency hedging premiums.

In the vicinity of the 34,752-square-meter building in central Bratislava are pharmaceutical company Bayer, Swiss RE and auditing firm PwC. South Korean investors have been expanding into central and eastern European real estate markets in search of better returns.

The average commercial rental yields in downtown Bratislava are 3% points higher than those in Vienna, Austria, which is 40 minutes from the Slovak capital. The sources said that borrowing costs for the acquisition were between 1% and 1.5% per year.

It was not disclosed how much the Valesco-AIP consortium borrowed to fund the acquisition. Last year Valesco Group and AIP Asset joined forces to acquire Microsoft’s headquarter office in Britain for 100 million pounds on behalf of South Korean institutional investors.

Evercore, a leading independent investment banking advisory firm headquartered in New York, and NH Investment & Securities, the leading South Korea-based investment bank, announced Aug. 30, they have extended their strategic alliance for cross-border M&A advisory services for an additional two year period and expanded it to operate on an exclusive basis between the U.S. and South Korea.

The advisory alliance enables Evercore and NH to continue to capitalize on what we believe to be a positive long-term trend driving cross-border M&A activity in Asia.

Founded in 1995, Evercore is the No. 1 ranked independent firm year-to-date in US M&A and is an M&A market leader in the TMT, Financial Services, Energy and Healthcare sectors.

Evercore’s advisory revenue growth since 2010 is the highest among all publicly traded investment banks. Evercore ISI, Evercore’s equities platform, is the No. 1 ranked independent research analyst platform by Institutional Investor and #3 ranked among all firms.

NH Investment & Securities Co., Ltd., formerly known as Woori Investment & Securities Co. Ltd. provides a range of financial services in South Korea and internationally.

It offers various investment banking services, including equity and debt underwriting; advisory services for mergers and acquisitions, project financing, and private equity funds; and financial solutions for corporate clients.

The company also engages in trading stocks, bonds, derivatives, futures, and options; client book trading; and maintaining portfolios, as well as international brokerage operations.

In addition, it provides wealth management services consisting of brokerage and asset management consulting services through the development and sale of various financial products, such as beneficiary certificates, bond investments, mutual funds, equity-linked securities, CP, RP, and WRAP accounts.

Further, the company offers merchant banking services, including short-term lending, such as commercial papers; deposit business comprising notes issued and cash management accounts; and structured deals for non-performing loans, project financing, and asset-backed loans.

The company is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea and operates through 88 branches, 6 overseas subsidiaries, and 2 overseas offices in London, New York, Hong Kong, Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai, Indonesia, and Vietnam.