After raising €200 million from French institutional investors, AMPERE Gestion is creating a new investment fund to develop affordable, means-tested housing for key workers in the Paris region.
The institutional investors who have already committed to the Fund include BNP Paribas Cardif, the Public services supplementary pension scheme (ERAFP) and Generali.
This programme already comprises 700 units of housing in service and the target is around 1,000 units. It will make it possible to boost the supply of affordable housing in places where market conditions prevent the production of intermediate housing. This housing is managed by CDC Habitat and rented out at an average of 15% below market rents in the most supply-constrained areas of the Paris region (Paris City and Hauts-de-Seine). It will enable key workers to find accommodation nearer to employment hubs.
The fund has ambitious SRI goals based around improving the environmental performance of existing housing and rating each new property according to rigorous environmental and social criteria.
AMPERE Gestion has successfully completed the final closing for its second intermediate housing fund (FLI 2) with €1.25 billion raised only 9 months after it was launched last December.
FLI2 pursues what AMPERE Gestion, CDC Habitat’s asset management subsidiary, initiated through FLI, the latter being now fully invested. The FLI2 disposes of an aggregated €2 billion investment capacity (leverage included) to engage the construction of 11,000 housings (8,000 intermediate lots and 2,000 senior or student-oriented ones).
The new fund’s strategy’s is in line with its predecessor’s one, combining both financial return and social impact, by providing resources to deploy affordable housing in the most tense French cities.
With this fundraising, the largest in the residential sector in Europe over the last 3 years, we hold a privileged position to invest in new housing in “Grand Paris” area. Such a result demonstrates that intermediate housing has emerged as a new asset class targeted by institutional investors in their asset allocation strategy.
We are also grateful to the investors who will allow, with the support of CDC Habitat, to boost affordable housing supply in the areas where it is most lacking
Vincent Mahé,
CEO of AMPERE Gestion and Corporate Secretary of CDC Habitat.
This was the largest amount raised in the European residential property sector in 2018.
FLI 2 brings together 15 institutional investors, half of whom had already invested in FLI 1, and this new round of funding has also provided an opportunity to get major foreign investors on board. A second round in 2019 will enable FLI 2 to finance the production of over 11,000 units of – mostly intermediate – housing in major French cities.
FLI 2 will take over where the first intermediate housing fund (FLI 1) left off. FLI 1 was launched in 2014 with an investment capacity of €1.7 billion, corresponding to 10,000 units of intermediate housing. This amount has now been invested and the fund has met all of its objectives in terms of location quality, yield and financial performance .
The success of FLI 1 and of this round of funding is a testimony to renewed investor confidence in the French residential property sector. It also highlights CDC Habitat’s ability to source large volumes of residential property assets throughout France and provide its partners with industrialised platform management facilities.
A strategy underpinned by social utility
As part of a social impact investment approach, the fund has ambitious SRI goals that will involve rating each asset according to environmental and social criteria. The aim is to continue to boost the supply of rental solutions in major cities by funding a portfolio of affordable, energy-efficient properties.
