AXA Real Estate reveals global head of IR

AXA Real Estate is set to announce today the appointment of a new global head of investor relations and marketing.

Dietrich Heidtmann, formerly of Morgan Stanley and most recently of Grosvenor, is replacing Antoine Jozan, AXA Real Estate's current head of investor relations and marketing, who is retiring from full time employment at the end of the year after 12 years with the company.

Heidtmann joined AXA today according to the French firm, and is reporting to Deborah Shire, global head of business development. He is based in the Paris headquarters of the company, which has €42 billion of real estate under management, and will also be a member of the AXA Real Estate executive committee.

At the end of the year, Jozan is moving into a part-time position while keeping his responsibility for investor relations in Canada and the Middle East, AXA is also expected to say.

Heidtmann was most recently managing director of capital markets at Grosvenor, where he was responsible for capital raising and investor relations across Europe, Middle East, Africa and pan-Asia. He joined Grosvenor in January this year. Howeveer, he is best known for a long stint at Morgan Stanley where he worked between 1993 and 2011, eventually becoming managing director of real estate private capital markets. One of his last successes at Morgan Stanley was raising a €600 million club fund for Paris-based property company, AltareaCogedim, in November 2011.

AXA’s Shire said Heidtmann had both long experience and extensive market knowledge, and was a well-respected professional in private equity real estate.

Though the company is not expected to reveal details of his first assignments, AXA does have a number of funds in the process of being raised. In Europe it is reportedly targeting €500 million for AXA Real Estate Alpha Plus – a Europe distressed fund.

In March this year it also launched a fund aimed at providing Italian institutional investors with a conduit to European real estate.

It has also been busy raising institutional money for a debt strategy as well. In February is said it has raised an extra €2 billion for Commercial Real Estate Senior 1 (CRE1), which reached €530 million in April 2011.

The successes do not stop there, however. In January it raised a total of €588.5 million for European Development Venture III, a European fund offering opportunistic-like returns to investors.

In addition, last July it announced a €1.4 billion joint venture with Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) to buy French offices.