US consultancy La Salle Partners has set up a 50:50 joint venture with French bank Societe Generale initially to manage a 100,000m2 property portfolio owned by the bank. The new company, Lafayette Partenaires, will also target third party clients.
The two met at MIPIM in 1993 and built up a “working relationship”, said Van Stults, senior vice-president of Chicago-based La Salle. Lafayette Partenaires had not been set up specifically to solve property problems at Societe Generale said Stults: “It has come about through the desire of both to build a fee-earning enterprise in France.”
The new firm would target foreign owners and investors in French property. “We have some US investment capital to put into France,” said Stults.
“The current French real estate problems are similar to US real estate depressions of the early 1990s. For this reason, there is growing demand for top professional asset management and property management services by the new owners.”
