Investors

You may not have heard of The John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company—but you probably know their real estate.

GI Partners, a trans-Atlantic private equity firm, has raised $1.45bn from investors including CalPERS, ATP and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.

The fund closing by Europe’s largest property fund manager comes as research shows €95 billion was invested in European property in the first half of 2006.

In an increasingly tricky market, opportunity funds, with their sights set on Eastern Europe and Germany, prepare to get their hands dirty. By Philip Borel

Secondary investor Liquid Realty Partners adds a new director of portfolio management as its business grows overseas.

As more money flows into private equity real estate, placement agents, once merely matchmakers, are now finding themselves serving a variety of different functions. By Dave Keating

At the 2006 INREV conference in Rome, real estate practitioners gathered to discuss the state of the European property markets and the need for corporate governance. PERE sat in on the proceedings.

Philadelphia-based Rubenstein Partners has closed its first real estate fund with a little help from its sister firm Lubert-Adler.

The New York City Retirement Systems finds itself again dealing with turnover among its top brass, signalling that something may be amiss at the $95 billion pension.

Private Equity Real Estate recently conducted its first survey of general partners' opinions on the limited partner community—the results were illuminating. By Dave Keating