The Dai-Ichi Life Insurance Company, Japan's third-largest life insurer and fourth-largest insurance company by revenue, has unveiled plans to return to overseas real estate investment after a 26-year hiatus with a JPY 10 bn (€78 mln) spend on European property.
The insurer, which has total assets of around JPY 35.7 trn (€300 bn), will deploy JPY 10 bn (€78 mln) into European real estate by investing in a fund of funds, a first for a Japanese life insurer, according to Nikkei News.
The fund of funds, which offers greater diversification than direct investment and allows for hedging against currency shifts, is invested in 500 office buildings, commercial premises and other assets in 15 European countries.
According to the media report, Dai-Ichi is expected to subsequently add US and Australian assets to its portfolio, increasing its spending from the next fiscal year.
In the 1980s, Dai-Ichi's foreign property holdings amounted to around JPY 600 bn (€4.7 bn), but it divested all of these assets after the Japanese economic bubble burst, exiting overseas real estate completely in 2001.
