Corpus Sireo, the German real estate subsidiary of Swiss Life Asset Managers, carried out €3.1 bn of real estate investments and disposals in 2016.
Swiss Life Asset Managers appears in second place in PropertyEU's ranking of European investment managers by 2016 investment volumes with a total of €7.4 bn. This figure is based on €4.4 bn of acquisitions and €3 bn of sales.
Corpus Sireo's contribution, therefore, split between €1.8 bn of acquisitions and €1.3 bn of disposals, represents 42% of Swiss Life AM's total. The rest was generated by the Swiss-based business and Swiss Life REIM (France).
In a statement, Corpus Sireo said its acquisitions of residential and commercial properties took place both in Germany and other European countries. The investment activity involved both portfolio and individual purchases for existing and new fund products. Almost €878 mln of the investment volume went towards office properties, while residential property portfolios were acquired for around €595 mln.
The most important individual acquisitions included the Kaufhof headquarters in Cologne and the Schwabengalerie shopping centre in Stuttgart for an institutional investor, as well as the Zurich Group’s head office sites in Cologne and Bonn for project development. In addition, German healthcare properties worth €160 mln were purchased for institutional special funds with Luxembourg-structured vehicles.
Disposals
Corpus Sireo's total real estate disposals amounted to €1.3 bn in 2016. The largest share of disposals (€512 mln) related to properties used for commercial purposes. In addition to deals on behalf of customers such as Cerberus, this also includes the successful disposal of Deutsche Telekom properties, which are no longer required for owner occupation.
In 2016, Corpus Sireo also successfully sold assets from its existing fund portfolios. Overall, properties worth almost €265 mln were sold on behalf of institutional investors. This includes the disposal of the last major 'Sireo Immobilienfonds No 5' sub-portfolio, which was closed with a purchaser group headed by the Singen-based (Berlin) Burkart Group with legal effect from August 2016.
Fund business
Corpus Sireo said it was working to increase the fund volume under management by more than twice the current level in the medium term to take advantage of opportunities with institutional investors such as insurance companies and pension funds who are increasing their activity in real estate.
As part of this strategy, Swiss Life KVG, a new German asset management company, was set up and was approved by the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) at the end of 2016. The new company is launching open- and closed-end property investment funds for institutional investors.
Ingo Hartlief (pictured), CEO of the Swiss Life asset management company, commented: 'With the Swiss Life KVG, we are accessing further potential in the German property sector on the basis of fund products leveraging social megatrends. In just three months after registering the asset management company in Germany, we have already set up four investment vehicles and acquired properties for each of these funds. By doing so, we have achieved several hundred million euros in assets under management so far.'
