CapMan Real Estate to join forces with NEP Partners

CapMan Real Estate is joining forces with fellow Scandinavian property company, NEP Partners, it announced today.

The division of Finnish private equity firm CapMan is taking on the NEP to grow its €1.4 billion property portfolio and fund management business with the expanded CapMan Real Estate business to be led by Mika Matikainen, partner and head of the real estate team.

It is a significant step in the evolution of the firm, which was launched when CapMan branched out into property in 2005. Around 80 per cent of the firm’s overall capital is derived from Finnish and international pension funds, insurance companies and fund of funds. Apart from its headquarters in Helsinki, the firm has offices in Stockholm, Oslo, Moscow and Luxembourg.

For its part, NEP is a real estate investment and asset management company that was also established in 2005 by Edward Williams, a former Lehman Brothers Real Estate Partners principal, and Torsten Bjerregaard. Originally formed as an operating partner for major institutions, it has operated in the Scandinavian market virtually exclusively since its founding. It has been in the market raising a flagship fund, NEP Capital and has offices in Solna in Sweden as well as London.

In a statement, Matikainen said: “The joint team will follow an opportunity-driven investment strategy and a value-added approach to investing in property in the Nordic countries. The Nordic region is becoming a preferred location for real estate investments in the current economic environment. Teaming up with NEP Partners will enable us to create a leading real estate fund manager covering the entire region.”

“The new joint team will put us in a great position to benefit from the increasing number of distressed opportunities and under-managed assets coming up for sale in the Nordic region,” added NEP’s cofounder, Bjerregaard.