US-listed Ares Management buys €400m package from IVG Funds

American publicly-listed Ares Management has paid €400m to buy an office portfolio spanning six countries from Germany's IVG Institutional Funds, part of IVG Group.

Ares said the 240,000 sqm portfolio of 30 assets - located in the UK, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Finland and Spain – offered potential to add value through active management.

It is the second pan-European portfolio this year to be acquired by Ares from IVG, following the 45,000sqm, eight-property office and retail package concluded in February. Ares followed that up with a further German package of 303 residential and 28 commercial units, totalling 22,000 sqm of lettable space, from a fund managed by Norway-based Obligo Investment Management.

According to Bill Benjamin, partner in the Ares Real Estate Group, on the latest deal: “This fits with our strategy to deliver upside growth through diversification across geographies and asset types for our investors. We believe this portfolio provides several compelling asset management opportunities, including the ability to create significant value from leasing.”

More than half the portfolio – 18 properties totalling around 155,000 sqm – consists of assets in the Netherlands, located in the four main cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht. According to market sources, the Dutch portion of the portfolio will be managed by a joint venture between Ares and Amsterdam-based APF International, which will also co-invest in the assets.

IVG Institutional Funds has been steadily selling real estate assets. Earlier this year, it sold the Frankfurt skyscraper Silberturm, tenanted by the Deutsche Bundesbahn, to South Korea’s Samsung SRA Asset Management.

Martin Tartsch, executive director at IVG Institutional Funds, said: “We're continuing to seek out the right market circumstances to identify and execute the disposal strategies for non-core assets on behalf of our investors."

The Los Angeles-based Ares Management manages about $88bn of assets, with more than 15 offices in the United States, Europe and Asia.