CapMan racks up €50m first close

Domestic and US limited partners have committed capital to the Nordic region via a fund managed by CapMan.


CapMan, the Helsinki-based private equity firm, has corralled €50 million from Finnish and US limited partners for a traditional closed-ended real estate vehicle.

The CapMan Nordic Real Estate fund now has enough firepower to acquire €125 million of assets taking into account 50 percent to 60 percent leverage, it said today. The company further explained the focus of the offering was office and retail property in the Nordics.

The first investment is an office building in Sollentuna in the Greater Stockholm area with Pfizer and BMW as the main tenants. For that investment, London-based Tristan Capital Partners came on board as an equity partner in order to facilitate the deal ahead of CapMan’s first close. Once investments have been made, the strategy is manage them over three to five years before selling them, said the company.

Investors in the fund are expecting returns to be driven by asset management in order to add value to assets. Fundraising is expected to be finalized in 2014 at the latest, and that the level of co-invest that CapMan is putting in is €8.l million.

Against the uncertain background of Europe as a whole, the Nordic region is seen by many as a relatively safe haven. In a statement, Mika Matikainen, senior partner and head of real estate, said: “The Nordic region is viewed as an attractive location for real estate investments due to its favourable macroeconomic environment in comparison to continental and southern Europe. There is international demand for Nordic private equity real estate investments and we are pleased to be able to offer investors this opportunity.”