AXA Real Estate Investment Managers said it completed 11 value-add transactions in six European countries totalling €1.4 bn on behalf of its clients over the last 18 months.
AXA Real Estate Investment Managers said it completed 11 value-add transactions in six European countries totalling €1.4 bn on behalf of its clients over the last 18 months.
AXA Real Estate introduced its value-add strategy in 2011 against the backdrop of a nascent European economic recovery together with a gradual softening of investors' sentiment towards risk. The approach combines active asset management and shrewd acquisition timing in markets with significant pricing dislocation, the investment manager said.
AXA Real Estate’s value-add investment strategies are primarily focussed on office, retail, logistics, hotel and alternative real estate assets in the principal markets of the UK, Germany, France and the Nordics, whilst also taking advantage of specific market opportunities in Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Poland and Belgium.
Value-add acquisitions already completed in the last 18 months include the purchase of the NH Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky in the centre of Amsterdam for €157 mln and the €172 mln acquisition of an office portfolio in Barcelona from Generalitat de Catalunya, which was AXA Real Estate's first office acquisition in Spain since the global financial crisis in 2008. The perceived risk rating of the country itself provided a value-add opportunity, the investor said.
Other significant deals included the acquisition of two prime office and retail buildings at the Bodio Center business park in Milan from Aberdeen Asset Management for €63.9 mln, which represented AXA Real Estate's largest acquisition in Italy since 2010; and the acquisition of an office and light-industrial complex in the 'Peri-Defense' district of Paris for €61.8 mln.
AXA Real Estate is the largest real estate portfolio and asset manager in Europe, with over €47 bn of assets under management as at the end of December 2013. It has over 160 third party institutional clients spread across the world, in addition to managing funds for 10 AXA insurance companies.