Union Investment has announced the launch of a new institutional residential fund with a target volume of €750 mln.
The vehicle, which will be managed by Deutsche Asset One, has raised an initial €250 mln of equity and carried out €200 mln of acquisitions through the purchase of a portfolio of 2,200 apartments spread across Germany.
A large part of the portfolio — around 700 apartments —are situated in the city of Kronach, in the Upper Franconia region. The rest are in large cities such as Berlin (550 units), Duisburg, Dresden, and Magdeburg.
The vendor of the Kronach apartments is the Zentral Boden Immobilien Group (ZBI).
The new fund, Wohnen Deutschland Spezial, exclusively targets cooperative investors. The fund focuses on existing properties as well as new residential units throughout Germany, in particular A and B cities as well as selected C cities close to growing major cities.
'We set up our first special fund with Deutsche Asset One in 2011. Thanks to its exclusive focus on residential property investments and its strong, well established market access, Deutsche Asset One is also an ideal partner for our new special AIF,' said Wolfgang Kessler, member of the management board of Union Investment Institutional Property (pictured).
Union Investment will supply the investment management platform while Deutsche Asset One is assuming responsibility for deal sourcing, transaction management and asset management for the fund.
'The renewed mandate from Union Investment is a huge vote of confidence for us and an acknowledgement of our work to date. Since the start of the year, we have acquired 4,500 residential units in locations all over Germany for various clients,' added Thilo von Stechow, managing partner of Deutsche Asset One.
PropertyEU first reported in December that Deutsche Asset One had acquired a portfolio of 2,200 apartments on behalf of a new spezialfonds launched jointly with Union Investment.
