Laurent Vouin to head AXA RE opportunity funds

AXA Real Estate has announced the appointment of Laurent Vouin as head of opportunistic funds. AXA RE is the largest real estate manager in Europe and second globally with assets under management of EUR 39.5 bn.

Based in Paris and reporting to Dennis Lopez, AXA RE's global chief investment officer, Vouin will be responsible for overseeing the management of all the company's opportunistic funds. These include AXA Real Estate’s Development Venture III fund (DVIII), which was launched in July this year and so far has equity commitments of EUR 230 mln.

DVIII follows the successful performances of the previous two development funds, FDV and FDV II, launched in 2001 and 2004 respectively, which have completed EUR 2.3 bn of developments across Europe, providing its investors with IRRs in excess of 40% per annum on a project level. Laurent will also be responsible for the company's Real Estate Opportunity Funds I and II, the second of which is currently in its acquisition phase.

Vouin joined AXA Real Estate in 2002. He was previously head of Asset Management in France, overseeing a portfolio of assets valued in excess of EUR 13 bn. Before that, he held senior development roles at Tishman Speyer and Nexity.

Pierre Vaquier, AXA Real Estate's CEO, commented: 'Laurent's appointment is key and timely as our opportunistic funds business expands to meet strong client demand for investments that take advantage of current market conditions. Laurent's 15 years experience in real estate development and asset management, together with our in-house teams of experts across fund and asset management, transactions and development, ensure that we are strongly positioned to offer market leading products seeking wide-ranging investment strategies along the risk spectrum and deliver consistent returns to our investors.'