Union Investment together with listed German resi specialists led a charge into the 2013 edition of PropertyEU's ranking of leading real estate investors in Europe.
Union Investment together with listed German resi specialists led a charge into the 2013 edition of PropertyEU's ranking of leading real estate investors in Europe.
Alongside Norway's sovereign wealth fund, which topped the ranking, Union Investment ramped up investment considerably in the last 12 months.
Last year, AXA Real Estate and Blackstone came 1st and 2nd in the ranking with €2.6 bn and €2.3 bn of deals respectively.
AXA Real Estate drops to 8th place in the latest ranking with an investment volume of €1.3 bn in 2012. And although Blackstone, the US-based private equity giant, had said it intended to spend a similar amount again in Europe during 2012, PropertyEU Research was only able to track some €2 bn of transactions.
This result puts Blackstone in the third position in our 2012 ranking behind both the Norwegians and Hamburg-based investor Union Investment Real Estate.
Union Investment moved up the ranking from 5th place in 2011 to 2nd for 2012 by increasing its total investment volume by some 90%. The manager of German open-ended funds for retail investors and spezialfonds for institutions carried out 26 investments totalling €2.5 bn, up from €1.3 bn in 2011.
Other German players made even bigger leaps in this year's ranking.
Patrizia, a German residential property specialist with a fund division, also moved into the top 10 ranking in 2012 after leading a consortium in the massive LBBW portfolio acquisition. Patrizia had a 40% equity stake in the €1.4 bn deal, and it carried out other balance-sheet investments during the year including the UK.
Another listed German residential property investor, Deutsche Wohnen, also came from outside the top 10 to claim 6th place in the 2012 ranking with a volume of €1.6 bn. Its largest transaction was the acquisition of the BauBeCon portfolio for €1.2 bn. Deutsche Wohnen later invested over €400 mln in other residential property deals.
Deka Immobilien - the largest operator of German open-ended funds - moved up one place from €1.8 bn and 10th place in 2011 to €1.25 bn and 9th place last year.
The PropertyEU ranking of Top Investors in Europe is based on reported volumes and has been conducted since 2006.
See the Excel Sheet below for a comparison between the 2012 and 2011 rankings.
A full report on the top dealmakers of 2012 appears in the January/February edition of PropertyEU Magazine
