Pramerica closes €9b of property deals globally in 2014

Pramerica Real Estate Investors has reported €9bn of real estate transactions globally during 2014, with Europe accounting for a third of the figure.

The real estate investment business of New York-listed Prudential Financial completed 262 transactions across the US, Europe, Latin America and Asia Pacific last year. The transactions included investments in real estate equity and debt, and property disposals across 262 transactions with the US and Europe accounting for the majority of deals.

There were 77 transactions in Europe totalling more than €3 bn, the most ever in the region over a 12-month period.

COMMENT
'Our global transactions activity in 2014 reflects Pramerica’s ability to successfully leverage our deep investment experience, rigorous research and risk management, and strong sourcing and execution capabilities around the world to create value for our clients,' said Pramerica CEO Eric Adler.

'As we enter 2015, we are focused on identifying the major trends and themes that are shaping the global property markets and will continue to seek opportunities where we can take additional risk to benefit from attractive non-core pricing and improved fundamentals, buy into late recovery markets and capitalise on structural shifts resulting from the changing nature of real estate markets.'

EUROPE
The UK and Germany accounted for most of Pramerica's activity in Europe, with about €2 bn in transactions. Some three quarters of European acquisitions were in the retail and office sectors reflecting Pramerica’s focus on identifying value-add opportunities in capital-starved late recovery markets in the eurozone periphery and second-tier cities.

One of Pramerica's stand-out deals in 2014 was the acquisition of a controlling stake in a 83-asset, grocery-anchored retail portfolio in Germany for $361 mln (€312 mln). Pramerica was partnered in the deal by the Third Swedish National Pension Fund (AP3).

In addition, Pramerica’s lending strategies invested approximately €670 mln across five countries. Additionally, Pramerica was an active investor in UK residential ground leases in 2014, contracting to buy more than 25,000 properties through several large portfolio transactions.

Pramerica has more than 650 employees located in 20 cities around the world, and gross assets under management of $58 bn (€50 bn), and net assets of $43 bn, at end-September 2014.

PropertyEU's Top Investors, which ranks Europe's leading real estate dealmakers by 2014 acquisition and disposal volumes, is published in March 2015.