AXA Real Estate Investment Managers’ Italian regulated subsidiary AXA REIM SGR has raised EUR209m at the close of the Caesar Fund.
This exceeds the target equity set out when Caesar was officially launched with a first close of EUR118m in March 2012 and gives a total potential fund size of around EUR420m once fully invested.
AXA Real Estate, supported by the full capabilities of its parent company AXA IM in Italy, raised the EUR209m from 13 Italian institutional investors that have committed to invest alongside AXA Insurance companies, which represent around 20 per cent of the total commitment.
Caesar is a regulated closed ended fund for institutional investors and will target investments in well let “CORE” office buildings. The fund aims to provide an annual average net dividend distribution of over 5.5 per cent on capital invested, once the investment phase is completed, and a nine per cent IRR net of fees.
The fund will seek investments in eurozone countries and the UK and will have a particular focus on investments on France, Germany and UK for the first 12 months, while maintaining a watching brief on opportunities in Benelux. No single investment will exceed 15 per cent of the fund's target portfolio value. AXA Real Estate plans to complete the investment phase of the fund in the next 24 months, at which time, under the Italian law for regulated funds, it will have the option to reopen the Caesar for further subscriptions.
The Caesar Fund will be managed by AXA REIM SGR in Italy and will benefit from the expertise and resources of AXA Real Estate’s European real estate investment and asset management platform.
The Caesar Fund is the second regulated product managed by the AXA REIM SGR team. The first being “Core Italian Properties Fund” (CIPF), which also has a core risk profile and is reserved for Italian institutional investors. In contrast to the Caesar fund, CIPF is fully invested exclusively in Italian office, retail as well as logistics properties. In the last three financial years, CIPF has generated an annual dividend of between five per cent and 5.5 per cent on capital invested.
Giorgio Pieralli, managing director of AXA REIM SGR and fund manager of the Caesar Fund said: “To have exceeded our target and secured EUR209m of predominantly third party capital during an extremely tough capital raising environment, is a real testament to AXA Real Estate’s ability to both tailor products that suit its clients’ requirements and ultimately secure capital into them.
“We now look forward to working with AXA Real Estate’s extensive pan-European network of local teams with the intention of sourcing, and then managing, suitable core investment opportunities in order to provide stable and long term income returns for the fund’s investors.”