GERMANY - German real estate asset manager IVG has sold €91m in German property to London-based real estate private equity investor CIT Europe.

The sale is part of an ongoing portfolio 'clean-up' to fit investments to the new strategic focus of office property of a certain size in five German towns as well as Paris and London.

"With a purchase price for each building in the region between €2m and €18m, the properties are either too small for IVG's portfolio, not used as offices or outside the most important German office locations," the real estate company noted in a press release.

Further non-strategic sales will be made this year, a spokesman confirmed to IPE.

IVG announced In the business report for last year, there will be sales of properties held in Helsinki and Brussels "should there be attractive offers".

IVG is planning to pool all German office investments which are matching the strategy into a German office REIT in 2008, using its subsidiary IVG Immobilien Management Holding AG which was granted pre-REIT-status in summer last year.

The planned initial volume for IVG's REIT is €3.5bn and at least 25% are to be listed on the stock exchange "depending on the situation on the capital markets", IVG noted.

Since the beginning of April, IVG has combined its private and institutional fund business under IVG Funds GmbH.

Ferdinand von Sydow was hired as new head of business development and responsible for sales.

He joined IVG from Invesco Real Estate where he was a member of the European Executive Committee.

IVG noted the new structure helps to use synergies in product development as well as making processes within the company more efficient.

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