Hines to launch new EUR 150m Italian fund by September

The Italian fund management unit of US real estate developer Hines is hoping to raise around EUR 100 mln of equity from Italian institutional investors for a new fund targeting Class A office schemes and residential complexes in the country's main urban centres, Hines' Italian head Manfredi Catella told PropertyEU in an interview at the Expo Italia Real Estate fair in Milan this week.

'We hope to hold the first closing in September, with the vehicle being active in the market before the end of the year,' he said. With leverage, the fund will have a spending power of over EUR 150 mln.

It would be the fifth fund launched by Hines Italy in less than a year. In 2009, the company received the green light from Banca D'Italia for the launch of its fund management business and in the autumn it set up three development funds with assets of over EUR 2 bn - Porta Nuova Garibaldi, Varesine and Isola. In December last year Hines won a mandate from the Italian private pension fund for journalists, INPGI, to run a EUR 100 mln investment fund.

'The INPGI fund was fully invested by April 2010, we bought an 11,000 m² mixed-use project in Città del Sole, Rome and a 4,000 m² residential development in Milan's Porta Nuova', Catella said.

The company has further expansion plans for Italy, he added. 'We are looking at acquisitions of other Italian fund managers (SGR) or at getting new mandates from pension funds for their real estate management,' he said. 'We will likely grow our assets under management to EUR 3 bn by the end of next year, becoming one of the largest fund managers for institutional investors in the market.'

The management team will also be expanded with the hiring of a further five staff to the present 15.