Peakside buys AIB's Polish fund management arm

European real estate private equity firm Peakside Capital has completed the acquisition of Allied Irish Banks' Polish property fund management subsidiary and its interests in two property funds.

This represents both Peakside's first direct investment into Poland through its Peakside Real Estate Fund I and its first strategic acquisition of a fund and asset management business in a core market.

Under the terms of the transaction, Peakside has acquired AIB's Polish property fund management subsidiary, AIB PPM, as well as, in a 50:50 joint venture with Partners Group, AIB's 9.87% interest in Polonia Property Fund and 7.5% interest in Polonia Property Fund II.

PPM, to be renamed Peakside Polonia Management, is a real estate fund management businesses in CEE and currently manages a diversified portfolio of assets in Poland and Hungary. The Polish business manages two Polonia Property funds.

With this acquisition, Peakside has added over EUR 600 mln of gross assets under management to its business, bringing its total AUM to over EUR 2 bn and has increased the company's headcount by a third.

Since exchanging contracts with AIB on 30 March 2012, the company has worked with PPM to integrate the PPM team into Peakside. To aid this process, Stefan Aumann, one of Peakside's founding partners, has joined the investment committee of the Polonia I & II funds. In addition, Miroslaw Januszko has been appointed Chief Investment Officer of Polonia I, a position he already holds with respect to Polonia II.

Peakside and PPM said they are already exploring avenues to raise discretionary third party capital for core and value add investments in Poland from various international and domestic institutions and will also focus on securing a number of third-party asset management mandates as the company seeks to build on PPM's existing track record in Poland and the CEE.