La Française Asset Management has announced the creation of the first Sharia-compliant OPCI investment fund ever launched in France.
La Française Asset Management has announced the creation of the first Sharia-compliant OPCI investment fund ever launched in France.
The vehicle, which counts an unnamed Kuwaiti investment bank as its main investor, has carried out its first transaction with the purchase of an office building at 91 boulevard Saint Michel, in the fifth district of Paris, for some EUR 46 mln. The vendor is French listed property group Foncière des Régions. The purchase was financed with a Murabaha loan, an Islamic financing structure which is accepted under Sharia law.
The scheme is currently let to France Télécom with a 10-year rental term.
Separately, La Française Real Estate Managers said it has acquired the Equinox office development project in the French city of Lyon for EUR 43 mln from construction group Eiffage Immobilier Centre Est. La Française carried out the transaction on behalf of a number of its SCPI investment vehicles - Selectinvest 1, LFP Pierre, Crédit Mutuel Pierre 1 and Epargne Foncière.
The complex will provide over 10,000 m2 of office space as well as 129 parking spaces on compleion in the second part of 2013. Construction of the asset, which is aiming for NF HQE Bâtiments tertiaires and BBC environmentally-sustainable certificates, started in March 2012.
JLL and CBRE managed the sale process on behalf of Eiffage.
