Valad Europe has increased its assets under management by €1.6bn (£1.3bn) over the past 18 months.
During the period it launched the Valad European Diversified Fund with initial equity of €180m and total fund capacity of €450m to invest in UK and German real estate.
The diversified fund manager said this could be doubled to €900m once the first phase of capital is invested.
Chief investment officer David Kirkby said in addition to the launch of VEDF with several large international investors it also set up the Select Industrial Real Estate Fund in a joint venture with South African investor Grindrod.
He added: “We have made good progress on both, acquiring more than €100m of assets in 10 transactions late in 2013.”
It added the investment adviser and asset manager operations of the €600m Polish Retail Fund from GE Capital to its business as well as new equity mandates and portfolio acquisitions of more than €250m.
New bank/CMBS mandates totalling €470m include the Gemini (Propinvest) CMBS portfolio in the UK; the Mansford and Edeka retail CMBS mandates in Germany; and the Landmark portfolio of office assets and the Dutch Offices I & II portfolios in the Netherlands.
Kirkby said: “Bank workouts have been a feature of the commercial real estate market since the financial crisis. As such, working to ensure maximum return of value on behalf of the lenders and receivers has been a core part of our activity. In the past year, we traded approximately €60m in assets out of our bank workout and fund portfolios.
“The effect of all this activity is that Valad Europe is now a truly diversified European real estate investment manager in terms of both asset classes and geographic spread, which has been a key goal of our company strategy over recent years. A combination of portfolio acquisitions, new fund launches and additional equity and bank mandates has led to an evenly balanced asset mix encompassing office, retail, logistics and light industrial, which gives a broader platform from which to launch a range of new products and funds for our investors where we see opportunities in specific markets or sectors. Also pleasing has been the diversification of our investor base by geography, where we have added new investors from North America, Africa, the Middle East and Europe.”
As part of this broadening geographic and sector focus, Valad Europe has strengthened its senior management team with the addition of Howard Barnes as head of Spain, Karl Delattre as head of France, and Thierry Leleu as head of funds management.
“Additions to our senior team reflect our ambitions to continue diversifying our business, in particular in Spain, where we have opened a new office in Madrid, and in France, where Karl has a remit to grow the business and diversify into other asset classes, such as office and retail. We have also appointed transaction managers in several countries to further strengthen our local teams on the ground,” Kirkby said.
“As investment activity continues to pick up, we are experiencing accelerating growth across the business, especially working with an increasing number of investors who require specifically tailored investment strategies targeting value add and active asset management opportunities.
“We have over €1bn to invest in various markets where we see opportunities in Europe. The European real estate market is demonstrating attractive value qualities relative to other global real estate markets and we expect portfolio and single-asset acquisitions activity to continue strongly in 2014 as we seek to invest early in the European real estate cycle.”
Valad Europe manages €4bn of diverse commercial investment and development assets across Europe, across its funds and mandates, comprising 550 assets and 4,700 tenants, managed by local teams totalling 235 people in 21 offices and 12 European countries.
bridget.o’connell@estatesgazette.com
