ING Real Estate Investment Management (ING REIM) is pleased to announce the launch of the ING REIM European Shopping Centre Fund, an unlisted closed-end property fund with a 7-year lifetime. The ING REIM European Shopping Centre Fund targets to 1.5 bln. in dominant shopping centers across Continental Europe. The Fund will seek to benefit from the recovery in the Continental European retail real estate markets to provide investors with Core + returns in the range of 11 13%. The Fund will be managed by a dedicated team of professionals based in Europe.
ING REIM manages in excess of 9 bln. in retail AuM through 5 specialist funds as well as 4 mixed funds across 11 Continental European countries, offering retail exposure to its extensive client base. ING REIM has invested over 5.5 billion in the European retail sector in the period from 2004-2009 and has a proven track record by outperforming the IPD Retail Benchmark on 3, 5, 10 and 13-year basis.
Florencio Beccar has been appointed as Fund Manager and Jacques van Munster van Heuven as CFO for the ING REIM European Shopping Centre Fund.
Florencio Beccar has over ten years of real estate investment experience and has worked for ING REIM since 1999. In his time with the company he has served in various key roles; he established ING REIM's operations in Italy and Brazil and has launched and managed a number of ING REIM funds, most notably the ING Real Estate Retail Property Partnership Southern Europe and the ING Real Estate Italian Retail Fund. Florencio Beccar comes with a vast experience in the sector having successfully invested and subsequently managed over 2 billion in shopping centers across different countries in Europe.
Jacques van Munster van Heuven has been with ING Real Estate Investment Management for 7 years. Previous to this role, he was the CFO for ING REIM Europe in Germany and The Netherlands where he was responsible for all corporate and financial activities. Jacques van Munster van Heuven also held the position of Financial Manager of the three ING Real Estate Dutch Funds (Retail, Office and Residential) managing all financial aspects of over 5 billion of assets.
"ING REIM is one of the leading investment managers in shopping centers in Europe and has an excellent track record of investing and managing shopping centers on behalf of our clients. We are able to deliver due to our unique platform of offices throughout Europe, which is critical to successfully implementing this new initiative," Pieter Hendrikse, CEO of ING REIM Europe said.
Commenting on this new investment vehicle, Florencio Beccar added: "We intend to leverage on our track record and unprecedented network in Europe to take advantage of the improvement in the economic fundamentals which are being experienced in some Western European countries already. The Fund intends to capitalise on recoveries in both the capital markets (yield) and the occupational markets (rent) in order to achieve the target returns. Furthermore, timing is of the utmost importance as retail is expected to recover sooner than other property investment classes".
Source: ING
