Asian real assets manager ARA Europe, through its platform ARA Dunedin, has completed the acquisition of the European real estate investment management business of InfraRed Capital Partners.
The transferred business will operate as ARA Europe’s discretionary real estate equity fund management platform as ARA Europe Private Markets (AEPM).
Infrared announced earlier this year that it planned to offload its property activities following a strategic review of the business. The company, which has been majority owned by Sun Life since mid last year, said at the time that it was ‘in discussions with prospective partners’ but has no further comment at this time.
Following the acquisition, the combined assets under management in ARA Europe’s equity real estate platform stands at over £3 bn (€7 bn) with a team of over 50 people located in London and Edinburgh. The transaction expands ARA Europe’s existing UK-based real estate platform, ARA Dunedin, into a broad-based asset manager with over £12 bn in transactional value across all major real estate sub-sectors in both the UK and Europe.
As part of ARA Europe, AEPM remains a highly focused value-add business, led by the same management team with a strong track record of investment performance over the past 30 years across eight specialised European real estate funds. AEPM’s senior management team are co-investing into the business alongside existing stakeholders in ARA Europe.
Stuart Jackson, CEO of AEPM, commented, 'Cultural compatibility, minimal overlap and an aligned shareholder who is one of the largest real asset managers in the Asia Pacific region, provides an optimal environment for us to thrive and succeed. We have exciting plans for both our successful value-add Active Fund series and our core-plus urban logistics program which we look forward to rolling out with the full support of the bigger Ara Group.'
Roun Barry, CEO of ARA Dunedin, said: 'We are excited to add an established European discretionary fund management “arrow to our bow”. Our separate account mandate business has made excellent progress and now we look forward to working alongside our new colleagues in AEPM and taking the combined business to the next level.'
Mark Ebbinghaus, CEO of ARA Europe and Chairman of ARA Dunedin, said: 'The addition of InfraRed’s real estate team gives us the opportunity to offer our global client base another avenue to invest into European real estate through a well-established, market leading, European value-add fund manager. The combined ARA Europe platform is operating in a nimble, entrepreneurial and institutional ecosystem supported by a robust corporate governance framework that embraces strong ESG values in everything we do.'
Headquartered in London, InfraRed is a global infrastructure and real estate manager and is part of SLC Management, Sun Life's alternatives asset management business.
