iii-Investment acquisition gives BNPPRE full-service German presence

While Spezialfonds initiators like Real I.S. are gearing up to train their firepower on a host of new investment targets, across town in Munich at iii-Investments, Germany’s second-largest real estate Spezialfonds company, top management is saying goodbye to parent company HypoVereinsbank and hello to new owner BNP Paribas Real Estate.

BNP Paribas Real Estate has been openly looking to expand its European investment management business to add to its transaction, consulting, valuation and property management business in Germany. Buying iii-Investments from HypoVereinsbank, a subsidiary of Italy’s UniCredit Group, now gives BNP Paribas RE a further €4.2bn in assets under management to bring its total up to €18bn managed for third parties.

The deal (for an unnamed price) lifts BNP Paribas RE into the top 10 European real estate asset managers, and also makes it a player in real estate debt, a market in which iii-Investments has been becoming active over recent months, since largely withdrawing from the open-ended property funds business. The new subsidiary will carry the name BNP Paribas REIM, and will remain under the stewardship of current managing directors Bernd Schöffel and Reinhard Mattern.

In a statement, BNP Paribas RE chairman Philippe Zivkovic commented, “This acquisition completes our service in Germany, where we already hold leading positions in transactions, consulting, valuation and property management - the latter having been expanded in the first half of 2013 with the purchase of the Frankfurt-based property manager Imoplan. Thanks to this acquisition, we are better able to satisfy the needs of our investors and users... From now on we are represented in investment management in seven European countries, and we are strongly positioned in France, Italy and Germany.”

Originally founded in 1958, iii-Investments manages property investments for German institutions - professional pension plans, pension funds and insurance companies - worth €4.2bn, including real estate debt. The assets are located mainly in Germany but also in France, UK, 10 other European nations and Japan.