First closing of €310 million for Sparinvest Property Fund of Funds (DK)

Danish institutional investors are showing great interest in Europe's first global property fund, dedicated solely to investing in non-listed property funds worldwide. Several significant Danish pension funds have committed €310 million in the first closing of Sparinvest Property Fund K/S and the Fund is expected to grow to a total of around €500 million before its final closing in June 2006.

Global Investment Strategy
Through a structured and thorough screening process, the Fund will spend the next three years building a portfolio of approximately 15 non-listed property funds - both open-ended and closed-ended. The Fund will primarily invest in Europe and the United States and secondarily in Asia. The retail and office sectors will constitute the majority of the portfolio with the remaining part in residential and industrial/logistics. The Fund is thus expected to provide the investors with an attractive core plus return and a significant risk diversification.

"We are quite excited about the confidence that Danish institutional investors have shown us already. It also illustrates the great need among investors for a structured global property portfolio", said Managing Partner Bo W. Jensen, adding "we have already started screening several attractive investment opportunities in the US and Europe and expect to make two or three fund commitments during this spring."

Experienced Team
The investment team is made up of Mads Rude, Kresten Dahl Juelner and Bo W. Jensen who previously worked for the Danish pension fund, ATP, and the Danish life insurance company, Danica Pension, respectively. At ATP, Mads Rude and Kresten Dahl Juelner were Portfolio Managers of the pension fund's €550 million non-listed international real estate programme. Bo W. Jensen has previously acted as Chief Investment Officer at Danica Pension with total assets under management of around €25bn of which €2bn were invested in property.

International Advisory Board
The investment team is supported by an experienced Advisory Board, made up of two Danish and two foreign property experts with extensive experience within property investments. The two foreign members include Gregory S. Nyland, Portfolio Manager of property funds at one of the world's largest pension funds, California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS), and Peter de Haas, who from March 1st 2006 will head Protego's Rotterdam office as International Investment Director (for the past eight years he has acted as Senior Portfolio Strategist for property investments at Europe’s second largest pension fund, PGGM). All Advisory Board Members have a strong network in the foreign property markets and will advice the investment team on the Fund's investment strategy and specific investment opportunities.

Source: Sparinvest Property Investors

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