Citigroup Property Investors, the global property investment manager of the
CPI Capital Partners Europe is targeting real estate and property-related assets throughout the Continent. The private equity real estate vehicle, the firm’s first true opportunity fund focussed on
The new fund has a primary focus on Western Europe, such as recovering
It has already made investments since fundraising began in the summer of 2005.
They include a €250 million minority stake in Deutsche Annington, the largest private owner of German residential property with a portfolio of about 230,000 leased and managed apartments. Citigroup was a co-investor alongside
It has also spent €60 million on a sale and leaseback deal with an un-named US corporation which sold seven assets in four countries.
Citigroup and its in-house investment team are backing the fund with their own commitment of €200million ($264 million). The rest of the equity has come from high net worth clients of Citigroup’s private banking arm, clients of wealth management subsidiary, Smith Barney, and a number of financial institutions mainly from the US.
CFI is headed globally by Joseph Azrack, the president and chief executive, who is considered to be one of the leading figures in the the global real estate money management business, an industry he hasworked in for 30 years.
Prior to joining Citigroup, Azrack was chief executive and chairman of AEW Capital Management, founder of the AEW Partners Funds, a director of Curzon Global Partners and founder and chairman of IXIS AEW Europe.
In Europe, Citigroup Property Investors is led by the former European head of Lone Star, Roger Orf, who also helped set up Goldman Sachs’ Whitehall Funds in