Start-up firm buys GPT Halverton

The London-based company Internos Real Investors has taken on the European property fund management arm of Australian REIT, The GPT Group.


Internos Real Investors has won the auction to buy the European property fund manager, GPT Halverton.

The London-based start-up said today it was paying a nominal €2 for the company.

GPT Halverton is the property fund management arm of Australian REIT, The GPT Group, which said in August it would sell its loss-making European business. It needs ongoing funding to complete a restructuring programme, and the business will be transferred to Internos with additional working capital of around €7 million.

The company has offices in London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Frankfurt and Luxemburg, employing around 100 people, and manages €1.7 billion of gross assets in five funds and two separate account mandates in Germany and the Netherlands. It invests in the industrial, office and retail sectors.

Internos, which was launched in 2008, said the deal gave it a “substantial” and “established” European platform with an “exceptional client base”.

The firm was launched by Jos Short and Andrew Thornton, former chief executive officer of Pramerica Bank real estate private equity and chief operating officer of Invesco Real Estate Europe respectively.
It is backed by Richard Peskin, a former chairman of London-focused property company Great Portland Estates, Nick Vetch, chairman of self storage company the Big Yellow Group and Patrick Deigman, formerly chief executive of Arlington Securities.