Swiss Life is raising capital for its first real estate fund with CORPUS SIREO.

The German Core Real Estate fund, aimed at Swiss institutional investors, will have an initial €400m investment volume.

The fund, due to open to investors in December, could invest as much as €1bn.

The fund will be the first since Swiss Life paid three German savings banks €210m for Corpus Sireo in August last year.

Corpus Sireo, which owns and manages €16bn in real estate assets, will build and manage the fund, with companies from the Swiss Life group initial backers.

The fund, established under Luxembourg Law, will invest in German residential, office and retail properties.

Swiss Life said it would focus on Hamburg, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Munich, investing in prime, individual properties with “long-term earnings potential”.