UNIQA Real Estate Management GmbH (UNIQA Real Estate) is launching the UQA Real Estate Fund, a closed-ended real estate fund for institutional investors. The fund will invest in high-quality Core and Core Plus office properties across Europe, with a geographic focus on Austria, Poland and the Czech Republic. The launch represents a further step in UNIQA Real Estate’s opening of its real estate investment and management platform, previously dedicated to the UNIQA Group, to third-party investors.
The fund will pursue a conservative investment strategy focused on high-quality office properties in central urban locations. Target assets will be located in liquid markets and within established, marketable transaction sizes. Sustainability criteria and building certifications form an integral part of the investment criteria. Value creation is expected to be driven primarily by active asset management and sustainable rental growth in prime locations.
Market correction for prime office properties in Vienna, Warsaw and Prague complete
“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 high-quality 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. Both factors support sustainable rental growth. Poland and the Czech Republic are also benefiting from dynamic economic growth. Taken together, these conditions provide a highly attractive starting point for new investments,” says Thomas Erdmann, Managing Director of UNIQA Real Estate Management GmbH.
The fund is targeting a total volume of EUR 600 million, of which EUR 300 million is expected to be raised in equity commitments. Leverage may amount to up to 50% loan-to-value (LTV). The minimum commitment is EUR 10 million per investor. The fund is designed for an initial term of ten years, with extension options. The UQA Real Estate Fund is structured as a Luxembourg SCSp in collaboration with an external AIFM and is designed as an Article 8 fund under the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR). Target investors include institutional investors and large family offices from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Nordic countries and Central and Eastern Europe.
UNIQA Real Estate will contribute its extensive experience across its core markets of Austria and Central and Eastern Europe, as well as its expertise across the entire real estate life cycle. UNIQA Real Estate has been responsible for the UNIQA Group’s real estate management for 50 years. Its integrated platform covers key parts of the real estate value chain in-house. Through active asset and portfolio management, the company manages properties throughout their entire life cycle. This combination of strategic and operational management expertise also forms the foundation of its new third-party investment management business.
The real estate portfolio managed by UNIQA Real Estate comprises around 200 properties with a total value of approximately EUR 3 billion and around one million square metres of lettable space.
