UNIQA Real Estate Management GmbH is launching the UQA Real Estate Fund, a closed-ended real estate fund for institutional investors. The fund will invest in Core and Core Plus office properties across Europe, with a geographic focus on Austria, Poland and the Czech Republic. The move represents a further step in UNIQA Real Estate's opening of its investment and management platform, previously dedicated to the UNIQA Group, to third-party investors.
The fund will pursue a conservative investment strategy focused on office properties in central urban locations. Target assets will sit in liquid markets within established transaction sizes. Sustainability criteria and building certifications form part of the investment criteria, and value creation is expected to come primarily from active asset management and rental growth in prime locations.
"With the UQA Real Estate Fund, we are making our long-standing real estate expertise available to third-party investors for the first time through a dedicated investment product. Following the market correction of recent years, we are once again seeing attractive entry opportunities, particularly for office properties in central locations in Austria, Poland and the Czech Republic. Initial yields in these markets have increased by up to 250 basis points compared with peak pricing. At the same time, modern, flexible and prime-located office space in major cities continues to see strong occupier demand, while new office supply in Vienna, Warsaw and Prague is extremely limited," said Thomas Erdmann, Managing Director of UNIQA Real Estate Management GmbH.
The fund is targeting a total volume of €600 million, of which €300 million is expected to be raised in equity commitments. Leverage may amount to up to 50% loan-to-value, with a minimum commitment of €10 million per investor. The fund is designed for an initial term of ten years, with extension options, and is structured as a Luxembourg SCSp in collaboration with an external AIFM. It is classified as an Article 8 fund under the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation. Target investors include institutional investors and large family offices from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Nordic countries and Central and Eastern Europe.
UNIQA Real Estate has managed the UNIQA Group's real estate portfolio for 50 years. Its integrated platform covers key parts of the real estate value chain in-house, and this operational expertise underpins its new third-party investment management business. The portfolio currently under management comprises around 200 properties with a total value of approximately €3 billion and around one million sqm of lettable space.
