New warehouse construction without investment costs

The construction of a new warehouse or logistics center is a strategic milestone for many companies—and at the same time an enormous financial challenge. Growth, changing market requirements, new product ranges, or the modernization of existing structures often lead to a point where existing storage capacities and processes reach their limits. A new building then offers the opportunity to tailor process efficiency, automation, sustainability, and capacity to future requirements. However, this opportunity is usually associated with high investment costs, which have a significant impact on the company's balance sheet and liquidity.

Medium-sized companies in particular often shy away from the high capital commitments associated with a traditional new warehouse construction. Land acquisition, building investments, storage and conveyor technology, IT systems, and infrastructure quickly add up to tens of millions of dollars. Added to this are planning and approval costs as well as risks relating to construction cost increases and project durations. This makes it all the more important to examine alternative financing models that enable implementation without traditional own investment – and this is exactly where the concept of “sale and lease back with access” comes in.

This model combines the advantages of a customized, needs-based logistics property with an attractive financing approach. The core of the idea is that the company contributes either an existing commercial property or a new site to be acquired, together with the planned warehouse concept, to a newly founded property company. This acts as a legally independent entity in which an external financial partner—usually an institutional investor, a leasing company, or a specialized real estate company—acts as the main shareholder. In this structure, the operating company becomes the lessee and at the same time receives a limited partnership interest in the property company.

The new warehouse is thus financed by the financing or leasing partner, who bears the investment costs. The company itself uses the property under a lease agreement for a defined period of time – often between ten and twenty years. At the end of this period, there are several options: The company can repurchase the property (access option), extend the lease agreement, or put the property to alternative use.

This approach offers several advantages:

• Preservation of liquidity: Equity capital is not tied up, so that financial resources remain available for operational business, research and development, or digitalization.
• Balance sheet relief: By structuring the deal as a leasing model, investments can be partially decoupled from the balance sheet.
• Customized design: Unlike renting an existing property, the new building can be tailored precisely to the company's logistics processes, degree of automation, and future requirements.
• Risk minimization: Construction and financing risks are largely transferred to the investor.

The “sale and lease back with access” approach is an economically attractive solution, especially for fast-growing companies that need a tailor-made logistics center but want to maintain their equity ratio and financial flexibility. It combines the flexibility of individual factory and warehouse planning with financial relief from external investors.

At a time when capital must be used efficiently and logistics real estate is increasingly seen as a strategic asset, this model opens up new perspectives. It enables companies to make their logistics infrastructure future-proof—without traditional investment costs, but with full control over process design, site development, and long-term usage options.