New mandates to boost Warburg-Henderson’s footprint in 2014

It looks like it’s been a very good year for the Hamburg-based Warburg-Henderson KAG, the joint venture between UK fund giant Henderson Global Investors and traditional Hamburg private bank M.M. Warburg & Co. The fund manager is the second-largest provider of property Spezialfonds in Germany.

Warburg-Henderson transacted €892m in property deals in 2013, much the same as the €891m in 2012, with €497m of acquisitions and €395m of disposals. The group has assets under management of €4.4bn, which it sees as having significant growth potential this year, after having signed several new mandates. (We expect to be able to report in the next issue of REFIRE on investment plans for the new mega-joint venture between shareholder Henderson Global Investor and the US giant pension fund TIAA-CREF).

Last year the firm received equity commitments of €546m, which included a new mandate from five northern German pension plans to create a €200m Spezialfonds, “Immobilien-Fonds Norddeutscher Versorgungswerke”

CEO Eitel Coridass pointed to an increasing readiness among German investors to expand their range of markets to those with more upside potential, a trend which Coridass had already commented upon at last year’s MIPIM, and which led to the setting-up of a new investment ‘concept’, designed to buy assets in strong cities with beaten-down valuations.

According to Coridass, “Investors are showing renewed interest in markets other than Germany. The fund strategy 'Europa Selektiv' focuses on several European markets with strong economies, as well as countries whose real estate markets in some cases suffered severe downgrades as a result of the euro crisis and are now in a phase of recovery. Interesting opportunities are currently emerging, particularly in the Netherlands and Spain.”

Warburg-Henderson currently manages 17 property funds for over 100 German and international investors, the majority being Spezialfonds invested in European commercial properties.