GERMANY - Insurance group Stuttgarter Versicherung has issued a property Spezialfonds for its subsidiaries.
The Stuttgarter Immobilien-Spezialfonds (SIS) is only open to companies within the Stuttgarter group and will initially be investing in trade and office property with a minimum volume of €15m.
The fund, which will make up the core of the group's indirect real estate portfolio, will mainly target in Germany and European metropolitan regions.
Administration of the SIS has been awarded to Frankfurt-based Institutional Investment Partners. The two sub-portfolios will be managed by Pamera Asset Management, focusing on the German market, and GLL Real Estate Partners for the rest of Europe.
In other news, the sale of a German property portfolio by the UK bank Barclays to Deutsche Wohnen has been finalised.
Deutsche Wohnen announced it has now fully financed the BauBeCon deal, at a cost of €1.235bn, with €430m equity and a further €700m debt.
The latter was provided by Bayerische Landesbank, Deutsche Pfandbriefbank, HSH Nordbank AG, UniCredit Bank and Deutsche Genossenschafts-Hypothekenbank.
Finally, HSH Nordbank has issued a statement refuting the existence of a bubble in the real estate markets in Northern Germany.
Based on a study by the Hamburgische WeltWirtschaftsinstitut (HWWI) the bank said that current property prices were below 1995 levels when adjusted for inflation.
Nevertheless, HSH Nordbank confirmed that there might be some "speculative exaggerations" in very sought-after areas in the North of Germany.
Overall the bank predicts that the prices would continue to rise as demand can only be satisfied slowly.
