GLOBAL - ING has sold its 50% stake in a C$2bn (€1.5bn) light industrial real estate portfolio in Canada, marking a global resurgence in portfolio deals.
The Dutch banking group has sold the interest in the ING Summit Industrial Fund to a joint venture between Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo), which manages C$70bn of Alberta public sector pension and endowment assets, and KingSett Capital.
In addition to its direct investment in Summit, ING has an indirect participation through its 7.8% unit holding of ING Industrial Fund, an ING-managed listed property fund in Australia that owns the remaining 50% in the Canadian vehicle.
As part of the transaction, IIF has agreed to sell its stake in the fund simultaneously to KingSett and AIMCo.
Separately, ING has agreed to sell ING Real Estate Canada, the manager of Summit Industrial Fund, to KingSett and AIMCo for an undisclosed amount.
The deal coincides with new figures from Real Capital Analytics (RCA) that show portfolio acquisition volume in 2010 will outstrip last year's numbers across global markets.
Global portfolio transactions have accounted for 25% of all investments so far this year, and at £44.3bn (€34.5bn) are on track to surpass the $49.2bn recorded in 2009, according to the data providers.
The trend may be accelerating, with $9.2bn in deals going into contract in July and August, including the ING Industrial Fund deal, bringing total portfolio deals currently awaiting closing to $14.2bn.
RCA said several factors were driving the increasing demand for multiple-asset transactions, not least the growing volume of capital owned by pension funds and public companies that needs to be deployed.
Values for in-demand, high-quality individual assets have also pushed investment managers to look to portfolios both for investment scale and the relative diversity of risk that comes with portfolio acquisitions.
Eight deals valued more than $1bn have so far traded or gone into contract, including four portfolios worth more than $2bn.
The largest deal, at $2.7bn, involved a 100-property apartment portfolio acquired by a unit of Caisse des Depots from French public company Icade.
RCA found the biggest change in Asia-Pacific, where $9.3bn in total portfolio trades year-to-date have comprised 20% of all activity - the $5.3bn in trades reported in 2009 accounted for only 9% of all investment activity.
Portfolio sales in the Americas have reached $11.9bn in 2010, already surpassing the $11.7bn volume for last year, and account for almost a quarter of all transactions so far.
The proportion of portfolio activity in Europe, Middle East and Africa has historically been higher than in other global zones, a trend continued in 2010 this year (30%).
However, the region's portfolio investment total of $23bn still lags last year's $31.6bn by almost a third.
