AXA Investment Managers - Real Assets (AXA IMRA) has acquired a 75% stake in a newly created property company focusing on affordable housing in France, which owns more than 9,800 residential units in Greater Paris.
Financial details were not disclosed.
The deal sees the firm create what it calls a 'strategic partnership' with in’li, an affordable housing operator in Île-de-France and a subsidiary of French social housing giant Action Logement.
Through the partnership, in’li and AXA IM - Real Assets will also seek to develop a further 1,500 new units per year.
Isabelle Scemama, CEO of AXA IMRA, said that the deal was in line with the firm's 'ambitious residential investment strategy focusing on markets where there is significant need' and 'favouring intermediate segments in order to provide affordable housing for local populations', adding: 'With the signing of this partnership, we are pleased to further materialise this ambition in the Paris region and to bring to in'li, a first-class and committed intermediate housing operator, our deep financial capacity and expertise to develop a significant programme of new housing production by 2030.'
The initial portfolio is diversified across the whole of Île-de-France, Europe’s largest city area with a population of over 12 million people, and totals c. 565,000 m2 across 143 assets.
It consists of 61 existing income producing properties dedicated to affordable housing and comprising 5,800 units which are fully occupied, as well as a further 4,000 units across 82 purpose-built assets that are currently under construction and are being forward funded by the venture as part of the transaction.
As part of the partnership, in’li, which retains a 25% interest in the property company thus created, will source new forward funding development opportunities as well as undertake project management, property management and leasing for the venture through its property management subsidiary in’li Property Management, while AXA IM - Real Assets will be responsible for asset and fund management.
Benoist Apparu, Chairman of in'li commented: 'This long-term partnership with AXA IMRA is an opportunity for the development of intermediate housing in the Paris region. It will contribute to the production, through the property company or directly, of 80,000 new intermediary housing units over the next 10 years – an ambitious objective that in'li has set itself since its creation. Ile-de-France residents have high expectations, and our responsibility is to do everything we can to meet them.'
