One of the most iconic buildings in Milan, the former post office building in Piazzale Cordusio, officially Palazzo Broggi, was sold for close to 250 million euros. Dating back to 1901 and located in a very central position, a stone’s throw from the Duomo and the Sforzesco Castle, the building was purchased by Mediobanca, represented by a team of investors from its private banking division. The building, former headquarters of Poste Italiane, originally the seat of the Stock Exchange and renovated between 2015 and 2018 with an intervention worth 23 million euros, changed hands at the end of a contest that ended on 23 October 2020, won by the Milan Trophy RE Fund 3, the Mediobanca fund.
The contest, a beauty contest to be precise, was coordinated by Vitale & Co. and Eastdil Secured International; the selling party used the advice of Studio Chiomenti for the legal part and of the EY studio for the tax part, while the buyer used the help of Dentons Europe Studio Legale Tributario, the YARD REAAS Group and Redilco.
The tenants of the building
Among the tenants of the building, the most famous is Starbucks, an international coffee chain with over 20 thousand points of sale in the world, totally absent in Italy until 2018, when amid a thousand controversies and – in an equivalent way – among the shouts of joy of its supporters, he opened his own store in the former post office building in Piazzale Cordusio. The multinational believed in Italy and in Milan, totally going against the voices of public opinion that believed it was unable to position itself in our market, which is so traditional especially for a ritual like that of coffee, which in Italy does not include plastic cups or the possibility of drinking it while walking.
In the end he was right, doubling his presence in Milan at the end of 2018 with a second store in Corso Garibaldi and foreseeing an expansion in future years with the opening of 25 bars and take-away stations in the most strategic points. of the city. In particular, the Piazzale Cordusio store inside the former post office building is a Starbucks Reserve Roastery, the first in Europe, essentially a luxury café that serves quality raw materials, to meet as much as possible the refined palates of Italians, and at the same time to give that touch of modernity to Milan, a city that is always at the forefront when it comes to setting trends.
But not only Starbucks: inside the former post office building in Piazzale Cordusio sold to Mediobanca there are a series of office spaces, whose current tenants are big boys of the caliber of JP Morgan and Natwest, as well as Kryalos SGR , the company that has managed the building so far, which holds a portfolio of 337 properties worth 8 billion euros, 45 funds and 80 professionals who keep it going day by day.
Mediobanca’s statements
Dino Gioseffi, one of the executives of Mediobanca’s Real Estate division, commented: “For us it is the third real estate deal closed in a year, thanks to the collaboration between private banking and corporate & investment banking”. The executive is satisfied with “having concluded a prestigious operation in the heart of Milan, in a year as difficult as 2020”. Therefore, he strengthens the bank’s position and its ability to find “iconic properties, solid tenants with market best practices”.
This is echoed by Angelo Viganò, manager of Mediobanca’s Private Banking division, who renews his “commitment to create investments and run the real economy when rates are at their lowest”. For him, at this particular moment, “investments in prestigious real estate represent an opportunity” in terms of yield and diversification.
