Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers has bought a property asset management platform in Germany as it looks to increase its presence in Europe.
The acquisition of Pamera Asset Management will give the US-headquartered fund manager an additional €1bn in office and retail assets, as well as five offices and 38 staff in Germany.
Cornerstone chief executive David Reilly said the agreement would take the company closer to its aim of having a pan-European platform.
Cornerstone will use the acquisition to launch new real estate products in Germany for domestic and international investors, focusing on core and value-added markets.
Pamera, which has offices in Frankfurt, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Hamburg and Munich, was established in 2010 by Christoph Wittkop, Gunther Deutsch, Lars Borghaus and Maximilian Isenberg. Wittkop and Deutsch will join Cornerstone’ European board.
According to its website, Pamera manages assets on behalf of Bouwfonds, Curzon, LaSalle, Patron, Tristan and Stuggarter Insurance Group’s SIS fund, among others.
Pamera managing director Deutsch said there would be “no substantial changes for our existing customers, with Pamera’s founders remaining responsible for both client servicing and asset management”.
He said the agreement would give the firm’s clients access to new and additional products.
Cornerstone, a subsidiary of US insurer MassMutual, which is currently present in the UK, Nordics and Netherlands, is targeting international capital flows in and out of Germany.
Late last year, Cornerstone’s European CEO Charles Weeks said there was a view that the bounce-back in the US had happened and that activity among opportunistic investors in Europe was “beginning to bubble up”.
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