Swiss Life Asset Managers Focuses on European retail and launches a new real estate Fund dedicated to institutional investors

Available to distribution since March, 27th, the Fund develops a pan-European strategy, mainly oriented to Prime retail assets in city centre with an excellent catchment area, as well as Core regional assets in France and Germany.

The Fund aims at building a diversified portfolio with a large part dedicated to both France and Germany, with a possible diversification in Belgium, Luxemburg, Italy, Spain and Portugal.

The French portfolio is already partly constituted as €68 million of acquisitions were recently achieved or are in progress to be finalized. Thus, 13 ground floor of buildings located in the heart of Paris in upscale districts (rue de Passy, rue de Rennes…) have been purchased. Other acquisitions will be soon announced, these French assets forming a solid base for SL REF (Lux) European Retail SCS, SICAV-RAIF.

Next investments may concern Germany, second pillar of the Fund, several assets being currently analyzed. In this country, the Fund will rely on local teams of Corpus Sireo, one of the leading real estate asset managers in Germany, who will carry on a detailed analysis of locations and assets.

Lastly the other countries will bring a geographical diversification with High Street assets located in the main shopping streets of metropoles in Spain (Madrid, Barcelona), Italy (Milano, Turin) or Belgium (Bruxelles, Anvers, Gand) benefiting from a high touristic attractivity, or a strong primary catchment area.

SL REF (Lux) European Retail SCS, SICAV-RAIF, under Luxembourg law, is managed by Swiss Life Fund Management (Lux) S.A., an AIFM located in Luxembourg. Swiss Life REIM (France) acts as an Investment Advisor and a Distributor.

Several strengths of this Fund….

• Swiss Life Asset Managers is a leading real estate investor in Europe
• Exposure to European retail thanks to local teams having a strong know-how of their market
• Sectoral and geographical diversification
• Portfolio partly built with qualitative acquisitions in France

…And on the proposed strategy in European retail:

• Mix allocation between Prime assets well located in the main European metropoles and regional assets having strong ties to their sector for an optimized yield.
• This strategy aims at focusing on retail assets less exposed to ecommerce growth (major brands developing multi-canal strategies or proximity assets)
• The metropolization of major European cities drives economic and demographic growth and favours the development of the retail sector