A joint venture of Qatar Investment Authority and asset manager Hines Italia is the frontrunner to acquire a portfolio of Italian bank branches and one office building from landlord and occupier, Deutsche Bank, PropertyEU has learned.

A joint venture of Qatar Investment Authority and asset manager Hines Italia is the frontrunner to acquire a portfolio of Italian bank branches and one office building from landlord and occupier, Deutsche Bank, PropertyEU has learned.

The Middle Eastern sovereign wealth fund is believed to have emerged ahead of a joint venture of Kennedy Wilson and Prelios as local asset manager as well as a partnership of Colony Capital and asset manager IdeaFimit in the bid to acquire the assets which have a market value of around €250 mln.

The portfolio includes around 90 bank branches as well as the group’s Italian HQ at Milan’s Bicocca area, which currently generates an annual rental income of €8 mln. The properties will be leased back by the German lender under a long-term rental agreement.

US private equity firm Colony Capital has already teamed up with IdeaFimit in similar operations, including a successful bid for a portfolio of 113 assets being sold by local lender Intesa Sanpaolo. According to well-informed market souces, Colony Capital and IdeaFimit have been selected as the winning bidders and are paying €175 mln for the 115,000 m2 package, which includes vacant bank branches and historic office buildings in a number of city centres.

QIA and Hines Italia have partnered on a number of other operations in Italy recently, including the purchase over the summer of the Credit Suisse headquarters in Milan from US developer-investor Tishman Speyer.

The asset at Via Santa Margherita 3 was put on the market through Cushman & Wakefield in early March and traded for over €110 mln in cash.

The 15,000 m2 asset is multi-let to bank Credit Suisse and BPVN. Currently fully leased, the property was completely refurbished by Tishman Speyer in 2006 and generates rents of around €6 mln a year.

In early 2013, Qatar Holding, which is part of QIA, also agreed to buy a 40% stake in the flagship Porta Nuova mixed-use development in the city centre of Milan from Italian fund manager Hines Italia Sgr. The deal amounted to some €800 mln, valuing the project at a total of €2 bn.

The deal is the latest by the Qataris in Italy. Last week, investor Constellation Hotels acquired the St Regis Grand Hotel in Rome's central Piazza della Repubblica for €110 mln.

The vendor of the luxury hotel is Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worlwide. Constellation Hotels is the holding company of Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani, a former prime minister of Qatar.

The hotel provides a total of 138 rooms and 21 suites.