Invesco Allocates €1B After Restarting Investment

LONDON-Invesco Real Estate, one of the largest investment managers in the world with around €285 billion under management, allocated around €1 billion to European property in 2009 after resuming investment after an 18 month freeze in which it concentrated on reorganizing.

European Transactions Director Paul Joubert told the Business Immo portal recently that France remains the first country in terms of capital disposition, concentrating 36% of assets by value following its sale of the Triangle of L’Arche of La Défense, an asset of around 37,500 square meters for a price that market specialists place at around €300 million. Investment last year compared to around €600 million of acquisitions in 2008 and €1.2 billion in 2007. One of the more recent signings was a deal to buy the Radisson Blue Hotel in Hamburg for €155 million.

The group acquired two properties in France at end-2009 for a total of €145 million: City One in Lyons for €60 million – and the biggest transaction on the French regional market in 2009 – and an office at 148 Rue de l’Université in Paris from the UK’s Hammerson valued at €85 million on behalf of a US discretionary portfolio manager. Its most recent signing in January was a €37 million deal for a retail and office building in a prime location on Avenue des Champs-Elysées in Paris, earmarked for a pan-European fund.