La Francaise Forms Expansion Partnership

PARIS—Following the growth of its real estate activity on behalf of institutional clients, La Française has decided to restructure its real estate services for institutional clients by creating a dedicated entity, La Française Real Estate Partners. This entity will act on behalf of its clients by implementing dedicated solutions based on core / core + value added and opportunistic investment strategies in French real estate.

To ensure the development of this entity, La Française has approached one of the best-known figures in the world of French real estate asset management, Patrice Genre, founder and former managing director of DTZ Asset Management. Accordingly, the new entity will be a joint venture with 65% held by La Française Real Estate Managers and 35% held by its management. The launch of this partner will allow La Française to enrich and restructure its institutional services in order to best serve our French clients, as well as those international clients interested in investing in the French real estate market.

“Our system for providing real estate expertise has been made stronger today with the announced creation of this joint venture,” said Patrick Rivière, managing director of La Française. “Once again it is a matter of people, encounters and shared values with regard to the search for increasingly relevant expert solutions for our clients. With assets now greater than $20 billion, La Française Group, through its partnership with Forum Partners, is ranked among the top 25 European real estate fund managers.”

In the last 18 months, La Française has grown its institutional business through various measures, which has included the signing of a strategic partnership with Forum Partners in September 2013 and the acquisition of Cushman and Wakefield Investors last March.

Working with La Française seemed to be an obvious step,” said Genre. “A group like La Française is an ideal partner. Its position at the intersection between the worlds of finance and real estate and the abundance and depth of its services make it a preferred asset manager for large investors. The partnership within La Française Real Estate Partners allows us to offer real estate asset management services specifically dedicated to institutional clients and to expand beyond classic Core / Core + strategies to Value Added and Opportunistic strategies so that we can offer greater profitability to investors.”

“We clearly needed a separate system and organisation to meet the demands of institutional clients for Core / Core + or Value Added strategies,” Marc Bertrand, managing director of La Française noted. “Targeting riskier assets, in terms of geographic location and rental risk means we can target returns of between 10 and 15%. These are very attractive but need precision in execution, in-depth customisation, tailored reporting and monitoring.”