COIMA targets €500m in fundraising for 2020 – Exclusive

Italian real estate investment manager COIMA SGR is aiming to raise €500 million in the coming year, after capturing €2 billion over the past 24 months, PERE has learned.

“We expect to be active in capital raising in 2020, where we are targeting to raise an additional €500 million,” COIMA chief executive Manfredi Catella told PERE. The fundraising target would likely include equity raised from the successor to the COIMA Opportunity Fund II, among other vehicles. COF II is the largest Italy-focused property vehicle to date, with a final close on more than €650 million in February 2018.

The €500 million in fundraising would follow nearly $2 billion that has been raised over the past 24 months, including €400 million that has been collected since the summer. PERE understands that an additional €200 million was raised for COF II during the latter half of this year, while the remainder was for an undisclosed development project.

“Because we’ve been quite efficient in deploying equity, there was the possibility to propose to cornerstone investors a capital increase,” Catella explained of the additional capital raise for COF II.

The firm has been an active buyer and seller, having invested €1.5 billion and sold €700 million over the last 12 months, achieving a blended net return of 15 percent against a net return target of 10 percent.

Milan-based COIMA has a pipeline of more than €2 billion in transactions and expects to deploy between €1 billion and €1.5 billion over the next two years. Catella said the firm anticipates the investment volume will be split 40 percent in offices, 40 percent in residential and 20 percent in other sectors.

He noted the 40 percent allocation to residential was double the 20 percent allocation the firm had designated to the sector in prior years: “We now see a growing need for residential for rent compared to the past. There are certainly opportunities to develop platforms in Italy which will focus on this asset class.”

Catella said COIMA also expects to invest selectively in hospitality and that it plans to target transactions in Milan, Rome, Venice and secondary Italian cities, depending on the strategy.