Russia’s largest listed holding company Sistema JSFC has established a new real estate private equity platform and acquired €125m of German high street retail properties.
Sistema Capital Partners (SCP) has been created to invest in international real estate on behalf of its parent company alongside other institutional investors and high-net-worth individuals.
The new venture will be led by Marjorie Brabet-Fiel, former managing partner at Russian real estate advisory and investment management company Apex Capital Group.
The portfolio of 21 properties, located on main shopping streets in mid-sized German cities, has been secured by SCP on behalf of a club of investors including Sistema JSFC.
Brabet-Friel said: ”The German acquisitions kick-start Sistema Capital Partners’ investment programme, which will target assets in the most liquid international real estate markets, beginning in Europe. In general we aim to exit our investments within a four-year timeframe.”
SCP said individual high street properties outside Germany’s ‘big seven’ cities had been largely overlooked by institutional investors due to their small size and low liquidity. The company said it is “assembling a substantial high quality portfolio of assets in these mid-sized cities that through its scale will close the pricing gap”.
SCP will pursue the same approach for future deals: securing investments with capital from Sistema JSFC before offering participation to other investors through club-deal structures.
She added: “Sistema Capital Partners’ strategy is to secure a pipeline of proprietary deals that it then opens up to other like-minded institutional and high net worth investors, who have a hands-on approach in keeping control of their investments.”
