Finnish institutional investor Keva plans to invest foreign real estate markets for the first time.
Keva, which manages local government, state and church pensions in Finland, said its board of directors had decided to direct real estate investments to other Nordic countries with Sweden its first target.
It said: “Swedish real estate will provide a good diversification to the domestic real estate holdings.”
The investments in Swedish property could be in the form of joint ventures with other parties on the Swedish property market, it said.
HEA Property Partner, its chosen local partner in Sweden, will manage and develop assets it acquires.
Currently, 7% of Keva’s €45.2bn of total investments are in Finnish real estate.
Of its direct real estate investment, 35% is in office, 25% in retail, 25% in residential and the rest in other sectors.
Fellow Finnish institution Veritas also announced it had sold an office building in Leppävaara, Espoo to Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management for around €70m, taking advantage of growing demand for Nordic property from international investors.
Sola Business Valley was built in 2011 and 2012 and has 16,936 sqm of space.
Peter Karlsson, real estate director at Veritas, said: “This property represents a relatively large portion of our investment portfolio, which is why we decided to sell now that the project is completed and the market is favourable for divestments”.
The LEED Gold certified building is fully leased as the headquarters for various companies, with Schneider Electric, Aditro and Lujatalo as the main tenants.
The pension insurer bought the building in 2011 when it was being built by Lujatalo.
