Lend Lease RE Investments and Assicurazioni Generali Create Global Venture

NEW YORK CITY-Lend Lease Real Estate Investments, the New York-based affiliate of Sydney-based Lend Lease Corp., has joined with Assicurazioni Generali, established in Trieste, Italy in 1831, to form GLL Real Estate Partners GmbH, a Munich-based property investment and management company. A spokesman for GLL tells GlobeSt.com it will raise money from European institutions. This “Pan European project,” as the spokesman terms it, will invest in properties around the world.

The spokesman says that GLL’s management will come from outside the two founding companies. Managing directors Gerd Kremer, Rainer Gobel and Dietmar Georg, have been appointed to lead the company. The management team will actually own 20% of GLL, leaving 40% each to Lend Lease and Generali. GLL will tap the resources of the organizations creating it, but will be its own entity.

“GLL, in view of the expected transformation in the real estate market, with the move from direct to indirect ownership and professional management, will be ideally positioned for such a trend,” says Gianfranco Gutty, vice chairman and managing director of Generali, in a prepared statement.

“GLL will bring to Europe the highest standards of professional real estate investment,” says Matthew Banks, CEO of Lend Lease RE Investments in the statement. “The partnership’s priority will be to open up the great property opportunities that exist across Europe and the United States to European institutional investors.”

“Although the initial focus of the business will be on the creation of funds for European institutional investors, the partners foresee attractive opportunities for the venture,” the spokesman explains.

“Generali has a vast network in the key European markets that will become increasingly important for the distribution of real estate products,” says David Higgins, London-based CEO of Lend Lease. “GLL will create product for that network and I am also delighted that, through this venture, Lend Lease will gain access to this important distribution pipeline.”