EXCLUSIVE: Beni Stabili ends fund management JV with Germany's IVG

Just six months after its launch, Beni Stabili has dissolved its joint fund management platform with IVG Immobilien.

According to well-informed market sources, the Italian company has decided to pull out of the operation after the German partner incurred heavy losses and launched a strategic review of the business as part of plans to refinance its debt burden.

Beni Stabili announced at end-November last year that it was joining forces with IVG to launch a joint fund management platform to promote and manage fund products for Italian institutional investors.

Under the agreement signed at the time, Rome-based Beni Stabili Gestioni SGR, the fund management arm of Beni Stabili Group, was to acquire a 5% stake in IVG SGR. Initial plans were to gradually increase the shareholding to 49%.

Instead, the company is understood to have wound up its 5% interest and taken the money back.

Beni Stabili Gestioni currently manages 13 investment funds with a total asset value of more than €1.5 bn.

All parties declined to comment.

Beni Stabili was one of a string of Italian fund managers that teamed up with international players in response to a need by domestic institutions to diversify their portfolios with investments abroad.

Similarly, Rome-based Fabrica partnered with CBRE Global Investors, Investire Immobiliare with Henderson Global Investors and more recently Prelios joined forces with UBS Asset Management.

These partnerships are all vying to obtain international mandates from domestic institutions. According to market sources, the pension funds for lawyers, journalists and accountants but also insurance group Poste Vite are all looking for investments abroad.