UofM divests another RE fund stake

The Regents of the University of Michigan has sold real estate fund stakes managed by Arminius and Europa to Landmark Partners.

The Regents of the University of Michigan has sold its stake in Arminius Real Estate Opportunity Fund, according to UK regulatory notices.

Arminius is the second real estate fund Michigan has divested from its portfolio recently. Earlier this week, the $8.4 billion endowment sold its stake in Europa Fund III. Both stakes were purchased by Landmark Partners.

Arminius Real Estate Opportunity Fund raised €252 million in 2008, according to PEI’s Research and Analytics division. The University of Michigan committed €15 million to the fund and allocated an additional €10 million to co-investments in the fund, according to documents from the endowment.

Arminius manages closed-end real estate funds focused on direct real estate and real estate debt in Germany.

Its maiden fund is fully invested in 10 transactions, including a €325 million portfolio of German real estate loans. The portfolio was sold by Deutsche Bank in June 2008, according to Arminius’ website. In 2011, the fund bought a loan restructuring portfolio of 28 commercial properties. The portfolio was valued at €1 billion and was purchased from Eurocastle Investment.

Luxembourg-based Arminius was founded in 2006 by Christian Molter and former Lone Star executive Peter Jun. The firm plans to launch its second real estate fund in the near future. The fund will reportedly target €400 million.

It’s unclear if the Arminius and Europa stakes are a part of a portfolio Michigan has sold to Landmark and the endowment was unavailable to comment by press time.

Landmark acquired the fund stakes using its Landmark Real Estate Partners VII fund, which had collected $670 million toward its $1 billion target as of August. Limited partners in the fund include the Nebraska State Investment Council, which committed roughly $48 million.

Fund VII is targeting a diverse portfolio of real estate funds spanning core, value-added and opportunistic strategies. A maximum of 30 percent of the fund can be invested outside the US.

Volume of European real estate capital raised and funds being originated peaked between 2005 and 2008, according to Landmark managing director Paul Parker.

“It goes without saying that this will manifest itself in elevated secondary activity over the next few years,” he told Secondaries Investor earlier this year.

Landmark declined to comment on the transactions.


Chelsea Stevenson contributed to this report.