Four years after raising its debut real estate fund, private French investment house Ardian is launching a property lending vehicle.
In March 2018, Paris-based Ardian revealed its inaugural real estate fund had closed with €700 mln of equity.
Since then it has raised a second real estate fund on €1.2bn.
But on Wednesday the company said it had created a real estate debt arm to manage funds and mandates to finance pan-European real estate.
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Ardian Real Estate Debt will be managed by Arnaud Chaléac. With more than twenty years’ experience in finance, and co-head of group finance at Ardian since 2008, the company said it was already strong in structured financing.
Sandrine Amsili, MD, will work alongside Chaléac. She joined in 2021 having been at Europhypo, CBRE Global investors, and most recently as director of real estate debt at SCOR Investment Partners, where she helped create the company’s platform.
Ardian's real estate debt activity will focus on senior debt and will seek to finance, alongside banks, in European real estate projects. All investments will have a strong ESG angle. 'This strategy complements Ardian’s Real Estate activity, which is led by Stéphanie Bensimon,' said the firm.
Said Chaléac: 'Real estate is an important growth driver for Ardian. We have great ambitions so the launch of our new Real Estate Debt activity is a logical next step in our development.'
