Swiss Life AM launches new core fund
Swiss Life Asset Managers and Corpus Sireo have successfully launched a German core real estate fund for third-party investors. By the end of the initial offering period, the fund had attracted over 150 million euros in capital commitments from institutional investors in Switzerland.
In the medium term, the "Swiss Life REF (LUX) German Core Real Estate Fund SCS, SICAV-SIF" is expected to grow to a size of 1 billion euros. "In order to offer investors a fund structure with stable returns, at least half of the fund is to consist of residential real estate in the medium term," Swiss Life Asset Managers writes. The focus is on properties in metropolitan regions with established markets and sustainable positive performance indicators. In addition, Swiss Life Asset Managers and Corpus Sireo are focusing on commercial properties for the German core real estate fund. For this purpose, purchases are planned in good to very good locations in German top 7 cities as well as in prospering B-cities.
Insurance companies of the Swiss Life Group invested a total of 300 million to build up the initial real estate portfolio. Swiss institutional investors, who contributed over 150 million, are mainly pension funds and insurance companies. Since July 2015, 21 real estate acquisitions - mainly in top 7 cities - with a total volume of around 335 million have already been notarized, says Stefan Mächler, Group Chief Investment Officer at Swiss Life. This includes a recently acquired portfolio of nine commercial properties in major German cities such as Munich, Hamburg, Frankfurt/Main, Düsseldorf and Freiburg, which complements the fund's initial portfolio. Now, the future focus of acquisition activities will be primarily on the residential real estate sector with high-quality existing as well as newly built properties in good to very good locations, according to Mächler. As Ingo Hartlief, COO Corpus Sireo Holding GmbH, explained, properties worth approximately 250 million are currently under review, the majority of which are in the residential segment. (mr)
