La Française to focus on separate account business

Paris-based asset manager La Française plans to strengthen and further develop the separate account business with international clients, Marc Bertrand, managing director of La Française Real Estate Managers told PropertyEU in an interview.

‘Separate accounts will be our first priority in 2015,' Bertrand noted. 'We hope to secure one new mandate per quarter, which should translate into investments of some €200 mln next year.'

In terms of regional focus, the UK and Germany will be the main target for investment, and the choice between the two will largely depend on the type of clients the company will be investing for, he added. ‘Institutions looking for a steady income are mostly risk adverse and they will likely prefer Germany. Investors who are more cyclical and are willing to take on more risk will probably prefer to invest in the UK,' Bertrand explained.

La Française has gone to great lengths to build a European asset management platform over the past year. Just four months after forming a strategic partnership with UK-based Forum Partners, the company recently signed an over-the-counter agreement to acquire Cushman & Wakefield Investors (CWI), the investment management business of Cushman & Wakefield.

‘Developing an asset management business from scratch is not easy. From the very beginning, we set ourselves the goal to acquire a boutique fund management company if we would come across one with good management and good coverage of the markets we were targeting. We thought it would be more efficient and would help us save time and money,’ Bertrand noted. ‘When we were introduced to CWI, we felt confident that the management and the company were compatible with our project.’

With a 10 person staff and offices in London, Frankfurt and Paris, CWI is led by executives David Rendall (CEO, based in London) and Jens Göttler (managing director, based in Frankfurt). It is largely active in France, Germany, the UK and Sweden. In addition to $1.2 bn of funds under management from separate accounts, it also manages the PURetail Fund, a closed-ended pan-European real estate fund that focusses on urban retail assets. Its clients are exclusively European and international institutions.

Commenting on plans for the months ahead, Bertrand said he is not ruling out further European acquisitions if the opportunity presents itself. ‘We made a first solid step in the UK and Germany but we still have plenty of space for further growth.'

Looking forward to the rest of 2014, Bertrand said plans are to ‘consume the marriage’. ‘We are explaining the new context to existing clients while reassuring them about the continuity of the business. We expect to have the whole European platform up and running quite quickly. Our goal is to achieve two separate account deals in 2014, plus participating with La Française’s network in the marketing of the PURetail vehicle,’ he noted.

PURetail has already raised equity of around €120 mln and the company is targeting an extra €80 mln for the fund, which is expected to hold the final closing in July. With gearing, the vehicle will have a spending power of around €160 mln.