A US-led group is to buy 51% of a unit belonging to Italian power utility Enel which manages around €516m (L1trn) of real estate.
The consortium, American Continental Properties Institutional Investors, is made up of New York-based American Continental Properties, General Electric’s pension fund, Belgian bank KBC Bancassurance and the government of Singapore.
The privatised Enel is keen to divest its vast real estate holdings that it inherited when it was a state-controlled entity. Enel, which went public last autumn, will keep a 29% stake in the new property venture and two of the four board seats.
The new property mangement company, to be based in Milan, will control 42 office buildings across Italy. Before the deal, the energy group’s real estate assets were valued at around €3bn (L5.8trn).
