BrickVest launches second co-investment EPF for BEOS employees

London-based online real estate platform BrickVest has set up a second commercial property employee participation fund in partnership with German commercial property specialist BEOS.

BrickVest said it has launched the Employee Participation Fund (EPF), a co-investment fund, to offer BEOS employees the opportunity to invest in their employer’s existing real estate deals, alongside institutional investors, securely through BrickVest’s pan-European platform.

BrickVest’s first EPF for BEOS was set up in 2018, and was the first of its kind to be set up in Germany. The idea for the employee participation fund was to help real estate developers to attract and retain employee talent, improve overall confidence, and ensure greater liquidity for institutional investors.

At the time, as we reported in REFIRE, BEOS board member Holger Matheis said, “Many of our employees wanted to participate in the real estate deals they are managing on a daily basis. In BrickVest, we have found a partner with whom we have been able to implement an innovative solution that makes this possible. Not only can our employees benefit from the returns generated from their investments, but so can the company thanks to the higher employee satisfaction and the increased motivation induced by this scheme. In addition, our institutional investors will know in the future that our employees who take care of their investments will be able to benefit together from its results.”

The fund, with €5m in assets at launch, is managed by BrickVest, while the underlying asset, a €300m German real estate portfolio, is managed by BEOS which became an affiliate of Swiss Life Asset Managers in June last year.

Emmanuel Lumineau, CEO at BrickVest, said: “BrickVest is fast cementing its place as the go-to solutions platform for European real estate sponsors. We look forward to working with other European real estate firms to put similar schemes in place and further democratise commercial property investment.”

BrickVest was founded by a tech-savvy team with backgrounds in finance and real estate, with the goal of enabling investors to participate in closed club deals at professional terms with a lower minimum investment than normally possible. Its investors can avoid the heavy fees loaded by banks onto retail clients, while at the same time accessing deals at well below the usual $5-$10m minimum investment.