US investment group Apollo has agreed a €842 mln deal with the Italian pension fund for doctors, Enpam, to acquire the fund’s directly owned property portfolio

In May, PropertyEU tipped Apollo as favourites to acquire the portfolio, which involves 68 assets encompassing over 1 million m2 across Italy and with a value of roughly €1 bn. The majority of the assets are located in Rome and Milan.

‘We are pleased to reach this agreement with Apollo to help deliver on our primary objective of providing retirement income to Enpam pensioners,’ said chairman of the pension fund Alberto Oliveti.

‘As we prepare to reach the peak of retirement for our members, this divestment allows us to realise important savings and to allocate the proceeds towards diversified, mission-related investments that will offer adequate reserves and returns to meet our commitments. We look to the future with even greater peace of mind,’ Oliveti added

PropertyEU first reported in early 2020 that the portfolio was being put up for sale through advisor Deloitte. The sale, which has taken longer than expected due to the Covid-19 sanitary crisis, is understood to include 17 office buildings covering 520,000 m2, 10 hotels across Italy as well as 17 residential buildings, five shopping centres and one logistics park.

The portfolio has been taken over by the Apollo European Principal Finance Fund III. Skardon Baker, Apollo’s head of European Principal Finance, said: ‘This transaction demonstrates our ability to source and execute unique, complex opportunities that expand our European real estate portfolio and exemplifies Apollo EPF’s continued commitment to working with European financial institutions.’

Apollo’s European Principal Finance business is the second largest, closed-end fund franchise within Apollo, following only the flagship private equity funds, with $7 bn of assets under management as of June 30, 2021.

The first EPF fund launched in 2009 and was created to capture a broad range of opportunities arising from distress, deleveraging and the realignment of financial service models. Since inception, the EPF funds have invested over $9 bn of capital.

Advisors to the Apollo Funds in this transaction included Realty Partners, with the support of JLL and Conio, as commercial advisors; Lazard as financial advisor; Belvedere Inzaghi as legal diligence advisor; BonelliErede and Vinson; Elkins as transaction counsel; and BonelliErede for tax advisory.

 Duff & Phelps acted as an independent evaluator and Deloitte Financial Advisory acted as financial advisor to Enpam. Angelo Piazza, Luca Leone and Paola Conio acted as legal counsel and Stefano Petrecca (CBA) as tax advisor to Enpam.

Isobel Lee

PropertyEU

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06/08/2021