AEW Europe, the Paris-based real estate investment manager, has raised €400 million of fresh commitments for its core industrial and warehouse platform, Logistis, just 18 months after closing the fund with €1.3 billion in capital commitments.
The new equity has been raised entirely from existing investors, which AEW Europe said included a number of institutional investors from across Europe and Asia. The fund’s total equity is now €1.7 billion but, including debt, this figure rises to €3 billion. The initial haul of €820 million back in December 2014 was already the largest equity raise the firm had ever had. PERE reported at the time that Dutch institutions APG and PGGM were among the limited partners which committed equity to the platform.
Through Logistis, AEW Europe has traditionally focused on top level logistics assets in strategic locations in continental Europe’s main hubs. For example, in January, the firm acquired a €200 million portfolio of French logistics assets, taking its total investment through Logistis beyond €1 billion – approximately 80 percent of the fund’s investment capacity.
The firm said the additional equity would allow AEW Europe to grow the Logistis fund to around €3 billion, with the next phase of investment focusing predominantly on increasing exposure to Germany and Benelux, as well as other key European markets.
AEW Europe’s chief executive officer Rob Wilkinson said the latest capital raise illustrated the strong support his team had from their investors. “This is an important vote of confidence in our Logistis platform from our investors and demonstrates the strength of the team and their ability to deploy a significant amount of equity into an extremely competitive market in a short period of time and in line with the fund’s objectives,” said Wilkinson. “We value having such a supportive group of investors and we look forward to growing the platform with them even further,” he added.
Remy Vertupier, fund manager at Logistis, said: “Expanding further will allow the platform to benefit from our relationships with the leading logistics operators and retailers, whilst maintaining attractive returns for our investors.”
The platform was created 17 years ago and its current portfolio comprises 99 Grade A logistics assets located across 39 sites in France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, the Czech Republic, Italy and Spain, with a total value of approximately €2 billion.
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