Bayerische Versorgungskammer (BVK) has invested €80m in a Finnish residential property portfolio.

Germany’s €62bn pension fund group bought the prime residential portfolio in the Helsinki metropolitan area from Finnish real estate fund Tapiola.

CapMan Real Estate, which advised on the deal, will manage the assets.

The 18,781sqm portfolio includes seven residential assets in growing communities in the Helsinki metropolitan area with 356 apartments.

Norman Fackelmann, BVK’s head of real estate investment management, recently told IPE Real Estate that it would add “three further mandates for the US or the Americas” to its real estate portfolio this year.

Specialised mandates are part of a new strategy for the €70bn BVK, which already has a number of global and regional real estate mandates in place.

BVK, which manages the portfolios of 12 Versorgungswerke in southern Germany, has global mandates with CBRE Global Investors, LaSalle Investment Management and UBS Global Asset Management.

The capital for these is still being deployed.

Overall, real estate makes up around 14% of BVK’s total portfolio. 

Fackelmann said he was confident the target allocation to real estate of 15% would be achieved this year but added that the BVK was reviewing target allocations.