MUNICH - DB Real Estate, the real estate unit of Deutsche Bank, plans to sell off nearly all its German properties from its open-ended property fund Grundbesitz-Invest, the Financial Times Deutschland reported on Wednesday, citing sources on the sidelines of the commercial real estate trade fair Expo Real in Munich. Investors will be offered a portfolio, code-named 'Mars', which will be worth between EUR 1.5 bn and EUR 2 bn, the newspaper reported.
MUNICH - DB Real Estate, the real estate unit of Deutsche Bank, plans to sell off nearly all its German properties from its open-ended property fund Grundbesitz-Invest, the Financial Times Deutschland reported on Wednesday, citing sources on the sidelines of the commercial real estate trade fair Expo Real in Munich. Investors will be offered a portfolio, code-named 'Mars', which will be worth between EUR 1.5 bn and EUR 2 bn, the newspaper reported.
DB Real Estate suspended its Grundbesitz-Invest fund in December 2005 for three months to stop further outflows, after worried investors withdrew assets in reaction to the company's announcement that properties in the fund were to be revalued. The decision to freeze the fund caused massive protests at the time. Since then concerned investors have withdrawn more than EUR 2.7 bn from the fund, the Financial Times Deutschland reported, with EUR 114 mln flowing out of the fund in September alone. One year ago the fund was worth more than EUR 6 bn. It is currently worth around EUR 2 bn.
The newspaper quoted DB Real Estate CEO Holger Naumann as saying 'This is a good time for cleaning out portfolios. Naturally we are also considering this.'
