Real IS eyes new core fund targeting Paris properties

Munich-based fund manager Real IS aims to step up real estate acquisitions in France on behalf of institutional clients and plans to set up a new core fund exclusively targeting properties in Paris for this client group, CEO Jochen Schenk told PropertyEU in an interview. He declined to be specific on timing, but said he expected to get the new ‘spezialfonds’ off the ground in the next 12 to 24 months.

‘We’re constantly looking at the market and prices and expect they may come down a little bit,’ he added.

Real IS is currently active in France and Belgium through three public investment funds and three institutional fund vehicles, with real estate assets worth EUR 550 mln covering a let floor area of nearly 200,000 m² in Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Rouen, and Brussels.

Last year, the company acquired three properties worth approximately EUR 155 mln in France on behalf of its institutional fund BGV IV including an office building in St Denis near Paris and an office property in Lyon that is let long-term to France Télécom. Real IS acquired another fund property in Marseille in 2011 that is let to the public health department of France.

In mid-2011, it also sold a building in Paris acquired in 2005 - 122 rue Edouard Vaillant, Levallois - Perret - for EUR 55 mln, marking an increase of 25% on the EUR 44 mln paid six years previously.

Real IS plans to remain an investor in France on behalf of its specialised investment funds BGV IV and V, and is targeting two acquisitions per year, Schenk said. The Munich-based fund manager is also planning investments in France that will be earmarked for its Green Office Fund (investments exclusively in green buildings). From 1 July, the company has a separate French subsidiary headed by Catherine Luithlen, who has served as Real IS’ asset manager for France for many years. She will share the senior management with engineer Johannes Büchlmeir.

From the same date, Real IS also has a separate subsidiary in Sydney, Australia. The move was prompted by the growth of the fund manager’s portfolio in the country as well as recent legal, regulatory and fiscal changes which now make it possible to structure tax-friendly investment funds in such a manner that the investment management is carried out by an investment company on location.

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