Jason Lucas

DENVER–Munich-based Deutsche Finance Group has opened its first US office here with the intention of investing roughly $100 million each year on behalf of its European investors interested in owning direct real estate in the US. The subsidiary is called Deutsche Finance America and it is headed by the former president of Amstar Group Jason Lucas as a shareholder and partner.

The investment strategy will be to pursue value-add and opportunistic investments across all product types. “We are pursuing investments in the top US cities with a keen focus on the major metropolitan markets that have the most user demand and investment liquidity,” Lucas tells GlobeSt.com. The size of the investments can be flexible — anywhere between $10 million to $150 million of equity per transaction, he says. The ideal model will be to set up programmatic platforms to execute on multiple investments with the same joint venture partners.

Deutsche Finance America, in fact, has already closed on its first deal in the US — a partnership with several other equity providers to acquire a stake in the office portion of Manhattan's Gucci building. Lucas did not work on that particular deal — it came about before his tenure with the firm and was negotiated from Munich.