CBRE GI extends life of European property fund

The Los Angeles-based real estate investment management giant has been given an extra five years by investors to manage its 2000-vintage Southern European retail property fund.

CBRE Global Investors, the Los Angeles-based real estate investment management firm, has agreed with investors to extend the life of its CBRE Retail Property Fund Iberica (RPFI) for a further five years.

The 2000-vintage vehicle is currently invested in shopping centers in Spain and Portugal and as of December 2014, the fund's portfolio comprises 14 assets with a total gross asset value of approximately €1.1 billion.

CBRE GI said it received “unanimous agreement” from its limited partners to extend the life of the fund, which had already received a two year extension back in April 2012, although it added a small number of investors decided to redeem their capital.

The five-year continuation phase will be governed through new fund documentation that was approved by all investors. Jose Borregon, fund manager of the RPFI, said the terms were very much the same, but the limited partnership had been updated to bring it in line with modern standards.

“The strategy is more focused,” Borregon added. “Since it’s been 15 years since inception a big portfolio already exists so the idea now is to optimize the existing portfolio. We are going to concentrate in the better assets, the core assets and invest in them to maximize the value.”

The fund extension comes during a busy time for CBRE GI, who only last week announced that Sophie van Oosterom had been promoted to chief investment officer, Europe from her role as the head of special programs EMEA at the real estate investment management giant.

The firm also completed the acquisition of a logistics property close to the Frankfurt airport. The firm, via one of its real estate funds, said it had bought the Phase 4 of Multipark Mönchhof, an industrial property comprising of a three-storied office building and a warehouse spread across an area of 55,972 square feet, located within an industrial park in the Rhine-Main area.