Axa Real Estate Investment Managers (Axa Real Estate) has closed its commercial real estate (CRE) senior fund at €2.9bn ($3.2bn), making it one of the largest CRE senior loan funds in Europe.
Axa Real Estate has also been awarded a separate £350m (€498m) CRE debt investment mandate from a major UK pension fund, which brings total real estate debt on its books to €11.3bn, of which €1.8bn was raised in the last six months and €9bn has already been invested.
CRE9 is Axa Real Estate's most recent co-mingled real estate debt fund for European institutional investors and the first to incorporate a German feeder fund issuing rated notes to German-regulated institutional investors with €350m as part of the final close.
CRE9 is also the first real estate debt fund launched by Axa Real Estate that is structured to allow for capital to be recycled back into the fund once loans have matured.
Axa Real Estate said that, with an initial target of €2.5bn, CRE9 has exceeded expectations, having received commitments from 18 institutional investors in the UK, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and Switzerland.
Capital originated predominantly from insurance companies and pension funds.
The CRE investments are in four main territories: the UK (43%), France (26%), Spain (17%) and Germany (9%).