Berlin-based Catella Residential Investment Management (CRIM) has appointed Alexandra Chevalier as acquisition manager of the Catella Elithis energy-positive fund.
The recently launched residential impact fund plans to invest €500 mln in Elithis energy-positive residential buildings.
Chevalier’s real estate career spans 20 years across European markets. She started out as a financial auditor at Ernst & Young and joins CRIM from GLL Real Estate Partners where she was head of transactions with responsibility for France, Belgium and Italy.
Prior to that, she held international investment positions at Colliers and CBRE Capital Markets. More recently, she completed a master’s degree in sustainable development and CSR global management at Mines ParisTech and wrote a professional thesis on real estate impact investing at Citizen Capital, a pioneer of impact investment in Europe.
Xavier Jongen, managing director, CRIM, said: 'Alexandra is a specialist in the European real estate market and will play a crucial role in implementing our ambitious energy-positive housing program for Europe thanks to her deep understanding of dual materiality where environmental and social returns are given equal consideration alongside financial returns.
'Our new Catella Elithis Energy Positive Fund (CEEPF) has been qualified as a ‘dark green’ impact fund under Article 9, the highest designation under the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation, and we aim to build 25-30 Elithis buildings across France.'
The Catella Elithis energy-positive residential impact fund (CEEPF) received close to €100 mln in the first closing earlier this month from Norway’s municipal and public health sector occupational pension company KLP and a group of Institutional investors.
Said Chevalier: 'Working on Catella’s new energy-positive impact fund in partnership with the French Elithis Groupe is an exciting new challenge for me. Housing shortages have become chronic across many countries in Europe and energy bills are soaring due to rising oil and gas prices.
'Catella and Elithis are leading a potential long-term solution to mitigate against these crises in Europe and I look forward to playing my part in a future of secure, affordable, and sustainable housing.'
The Elithis towers, developments from the French Elithis Groupe, a specialist in building sustainable, operationally low carbon properties at standard construction costs, already outperform the EU's 2050 ‘net carbon zero’ target by feeding excess energy back to the public grid while residents benefit from significant savings on energy costs.
The fund has already acquired a 64-apartment Elithis project in Mulhouse, north-eastern France, in February 2023.
