Internos to manage BL's European business park fund

UK REIT British Land has appointed Internos Global Investors to provide advisory and asset management services to the Pillar Retail Europark Fund (PREF). The mandate brings funds under management at Internos, the owner-managed real estate fund management firm, to €4.1 bn.

PREF is a Luxembourg-based, closed-end FCP which was established in 2004 and is currently backed by British Land and a group of institutional investors. It owns ten retail parks in Spain, France, Portugal and Italy with a collective value of €230 mln. As part of the integration of the management of the fund, most of British Land's personnel in Spain and France have transferred to Internos.

The British Land deal is the eighth fund manager replacement mandate for Internos since its formation in 2008.
It follows a period of sustained growth in Internos's European business in 2013. Over the past six months, the fund manager has acquired Commerz Real’s €1.6 bn real estate Spezialfonds business, been appointed investment manager of Local Shopping REIT and held the second close of its Hotel Real Estate Fund with €210 mln of equity.

Internos has also won two further mandates: one, to manage a French portfolio for a Swedish pension fund and the other, from the Saxony Doctors Pension Fund in Germany (Sächsische Aerzteversorgung ‘SAEV’), to invest up to €200 mln in value-add European hotel real estate.