AEW Europe holds first close for European value-add fund

The €18 billion real estate investment manager has made capital raising progress on its Europe Value Investors Fund attracting €101 million of capital commitments at the point of a first close. Further closings are expected for later in the year.

AEW Europe, the pan-Europe investment manager, has made headway with the capital raising for its Europe Value Investors Fund, holding a first close on €101 million of capital commitments.

The strategy for the fund is to focus on core-plus and value-add opportunities in the office sector, predominantly in Germany, France and the UK.

The first closing is set to be followed up with further closings this year as the firm seeks to build a fund with total investment firepower of €700 million, including debt, it said.

Russell Jewell, head of private equity funds at AEW Europe, said in a statement today: “Current market pricing provides the opportunity to acquire office assets at discounted values and at an attractive point in the cycle.”

Carsten Czarnetzki, fund manager for Europe Value Investors, further explained that the fund’s strategy was to “take advantage of the strong demand for stabilised, core assets, targeting the most liquid European markets”. He said: “We will invest in office assets that can be managed or repositioned to core to take advantage of this demand.”

AEW Europe is one of the largest European real estate asset and investment managers and is part of the global €38 billion AEW franchise. In Europe, the €18 billion of assets are in funds and separate accounts spanning core, core-plus, value added and opportunistic. Its main offices in Europe are in Paris and London.

In March, the organization made an important change at the top as Rob Wilkinson became chief executive officer following the departure of Christian Delaire to Generali.