Barcelona buy pushes Patrizia Living Cities fund to €1.5bn

Patrizia’s Living Cities fund, whose equity has now increased to about €1.5 billion, is to invest around €600 million in a Barcelona residential portfolio.

The portfolio comprises 10 residential assets that are a mix of newly completed buildings and others that will be constructed this year. They each provide additional services such as gyms, co-working space, a concierge service, lounge areas and swimming pools.

“All investment decisions for our Living Cities fund are supported by data intelligence analytics that measure the attractiveness and future potential of the assets we target,” said Sebastian Dietert, fund manager of the Living Cities Fund.

“Using our AI technology, we found that the Barcelona assets we have purchased are all very well positioned in their respective macro and micro locations, in terms of their proximity to amenities and with exciting future growth prospects,” he added.

Dietert said that Barcelona offers stable income return and long-term capital growth. “For connectivity and innovation alone, Barcelona consistently ranks in the top quarter of our Patrizia European Living Cities Report, which measures over 100 cities also for their affordability and liquidity,” he said, adding that this helps clients develop a truly diversified European residential portfolio.

Transaction will increase residential AUM to €16bn

The Barcelona investment takes the Living Cities fund to about €1.5 billion in equity and it plans to increase this to at least €2 billion this year. Once concluded the deal will also significantly increase Patrizia’s current residential AUM of €16 billion.

Other recent acquisitions for Living Cities include a large student housing portfolio purchased in Denmark; a 1,500-unit residential scheme in Ireland; a 281-unit build-to-rent scheme in Reading, UK; a 24-storey residential tower in Helsinki, Finland; and a residential development and multi-family asset in Sweden.

Living Cities fund director and head of residential fund management at Patrizia, Nathalie Winkelmann, said that the living sector, especially multifamily, continues to be resilient despite the economic fluctuations caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

More than €950 million in fresh capital has been raised over the last 12 months, “at the height of the global Covid pandemic,” she said.

At the end of Q3 2021 the fund achieved a 10.7 % total return.