AEW boosts German platform with takeover of Hypoport Invest

Global real estate asset manager AEW has further expanded its German investment management platform with the acquisition of Hypoport Invest from its listed owner, the Berlin-based Hypoport, for an undisclosed sum.

The €62bn AEW said that the deal added a German regulated management capability (AIFM) to its pan-European investment and asset management platform. AEW, which represents the real estate asset management platform of Natixis Investment Managers, manages over €29bn of real estate assets in Europe on behalf of a number of funds and separate accounts.

The manager said it has transferred its existing team and business to the new subsidiary, which has been rebranded AEW Invest.

“Germany is one of Europe’s most important real estate markets and, as with the wider platform in Europe, a key element to ensuring we can continue to grow operations is to be able to offer our clients a full range of services,” said Rob Wilkinson, CEO of AEW.

“The acquisition of this business takes us from being a pure asset manager to a fully regulated alternative investment fund manager, building on the momentum already achieved by Stephan Boenning and our team in Germany.”

Boenning himself, AEW’s head of Germany, added, “This acquisition allows us to combine our teams’ in-depth knowledge of the real estate market with the regulatory expertise of a fund management entity,'

Since 2014 AEW has established a number of funds in Germany including Europe Value Investors and City Retail and has raised more than €1.5bn of equity from over 40 German investors over the period. As well as these funds, AEW currently manages a number of separate account mandates on behalf of German institutions.

“This new fully integrated approach gives us a much more efficient and shorter time frame for bringing specialised products to market, as well as for fund and transaction management, whether through segregated accounts, club deals or regulated evergreen funds that match the specific requirements of our clients.”

Separate to its investment management business, which AEW is now taking over, Hypoport's B2B mortgage and consumer lending matching platform Europace is the largest provider-independent financing marketplace in Germany, processing up to €5bn in transactions every month.

Here at REFIRE we track and regularly report on Hypoport’s EPX house price index from this data pool of actual home loan transactions. The hedonic calculation methodology it uses was developed in collaboration with the Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning (BBR).