Ardian Real Estate is an exlusive talks to buy the whole residual portfolio of Cloe Fondo Uffici, managed by Italy’s asset manager Prelios sgr, MF-Milano Finanza writes today.
Ardian is said to have valued the portfolio 350-360 million euros and  the deal is expected to close by next Q1 2017 or even before.
The Cloe fund has been active since 2004 and is focused on commercial real estate and offices with a real estate portfolio located in the major Italian cities. The fund was launched with an initial portfolio with an 877.5 million euros of market value and 39 office buildings (see here the press release). Among original investors there were Generali, Sara Assicurazioni, Fondiaria Sai, Fineco Vita, GE Real Estate, Merrill Lynch, Fondazione Cariplo e Cassa Ragionieri and Pirelli Re sgr (the old Prelios sgr’s name).
Cloe fund has been targeted also by  Giancarlo Scotti, former ceo of Generali Real Estate and Generali Properties, who was thinking of using Cloe as a platform where building a new Siiq (the equivalent of a Reit for the Italian law). Mr. Scotti was said to have valued Cloe about 400 million euros, but there was no deal.
Head of South Europe real estate operations for Ardian is Rodolfo Petrosino (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Ardian announced its entry in the real estate market in September 2015 adding that its first investments would have been in non-residential real estate in France, Germany and Italy.
