Real estate quotas in German institutional portfolios are set to rise to almost 13% at the end of next year, according to Universal-Investment.

German fund manager surveyed German pension funds and insurers with €50bn in assets under management jointly, €6.1bn of which was invested in real estate.

Investors are focusing particularly on North America where they want to increase their exposure from currently around 2% to 11%, it found.

Asia is also of great interest, with investors targeting exposure of 6% from currently below 1%.

Given the geographical distance, 60% of the new investments will be realised via fund solutions.

Until now 54% of the properties in the portfolios of the surveyed investors had been held directly, Universal-Investment pointed out.

For the new indirect investments, the vast majority will continue to use open real estate Spezialfonds under German or Luxembourg law.

Only 10% will be done via the new Investment KG structure created under the KAGB which implemented the AIFMD in Germany.