REAL ESTATE - ING Real Estate Investment Management has launched five new property funds with a total value of €4.25bn.
The new offering comprises a central and East European fund of €1bn, a Nordic property fund of €1bn, a French residential fund of €500m, an infrastructure fund of €1bn and a healthcare property fund of €750m.
“Institutional investors are looking for more “value-added” style funds, provided by selective investment in a broader range of diversified markets and real estate sectors,” said ING Real Estate IM Europe chief executive Pieter Hendrikse.
“Big institutions need absolute return and at the moment they will have difficulty achieving that with core funds,” he told IPE Real Estate.
“The new funds are value-added in terms of the absolute investment returns we are targeting – such as the Central and Eastern European Fund and because they offer access to markets where quality building stock is in tight supply,” he said.
But aren’t investors wary of taking the risk of investing in CEE? “This is no longer the case, especially since many CEE countries joined the EU,” Hendrikse continued.
UK investors, which have long been wary of investing abroad since their fingers were burned in the 1980s are “knocking on the door of central and eastern Europe,” according to Hendrikse.
