Rockspring Property Investment Managers has bought a 40,000-m2 shopping centre located in the Dutch city of Den Bosch for over EUR 44 mln. The deal comes shortly after the opening by Rockspring of an office in the country to focus on asset management and sourcing acquisitions. The vendor was Unibail-Rodamco.

Major tenants at the Bossche Boulevard centre include DiY Praxis, Prenatal, Kwantum, Trendhopper and Brugman Keukens. The centre also has 13,000 m2 of warehouse and ancillary office space, which has the potential to be converted into retail. The property is earmarked for the Rockspring PanEuropean Property Limited Partnership.

Rockspring said it has appointed Laurien Van Wieringen to head up its operations in the region, which currently include over EUR 135 mln of mainly retail and industrial assets. The decision reflects the increasingly important allocation of Dutch property within a number of Rockspring's pan-European mandates, the company said. Van Wieringen joined Rockspring in 2007 from Ibus, a Dutch property investment management company, and before that she worked for Dutch pension fund APG Investments in its real estate team.

The UK-based company plans to double the size of its property portfolio in the region over the next two years and, on behalf of a number of pan-European funds and separate mandates, will primarily target shopping centers and retail parks.