Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo) has helped recapitalise a German light industrial company Aurelis Real Estate with €400m of equity.

New York-based Alpine Grove Partners, which acquired 50% of Aurelis from Deutsche Bahn in 2007, before increasing its stake in 2014, said it led the recapitalisation.

Canadian institutional investor AIMCo has recieved a “significant minority limited partner stake” as a result of its investment which followed a competitive auction.

Aurelis is a vertically integrated real estate operating business providing warehouse and distribution solutions for European industrial companies, including Porsche, Deutsche Bahn and Evonik.

It is also a developer of urban infill land and has a history of partnering with municipalities to revitalise post-industrial sites.

Its portfolio spans nearly 6m sqm of land and 1m sqm of buildings in Germany.

Rupert Wingfield, AIMCo’s head of European real estate, said: “Our investment into Aurelis provides immediate exposure to the dynamic German economy and to the resilient industrial and urban land sectors which we believe will deliver strong returns going forward.”

Markus Hens, partner at Alpine Grove, said: “We are pleased to have delivered a sizable liquidity option to our investors. Transacting in this environment is a testament to the quality and earnings potential of the Aurelis platform we have built together with management over the last 13 years.

“We are enthusiastic to have received the trust and mandate of AIMCo for such a large and important investment.”

Joachim Wieland, CEO of Aurelis, said: “We welcome AIMCo joining our shareholder structure. This endorses our strategy as a fully integrated platform.

“With the support of AIMCo as a long-term investor, we are well positioned to capture further investment opportunities in our market. We are highly motivated to live up to the confidence vested in us by such a prestigious investor.”

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