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Patrizia Immobilien has emerged as the fastest growing real estate investment manager in the latest PropertyEU ranking of Top 100 Investors in Europe.

In the past 18 months, the Augsburg-based company has seen its assets under management more than double to almost €11 bn following three mammoth acquisitions in Germany. At end-2012, the figure came to €9.7 bn, earning it 38th place in the latest PropertyEU ranking.

Last week, the listed German property company acquired a portfolio of 36 German office properties from Vienna-listed CA Immobilien in what has been described as the country’s biggest commercial real estate transaction this year. That deal follows two giant residential deals as the head of a consortium acting on behalf of institutional clients including German savings banks, pension funds and insurers.

While residential accounts for roughly half of Patrizia’s portfolio, its ambitions extend beyond this sector – and beyond Germany’s national boundaries. In the first half of this year, the company spent €300 mln on offices and light industrial assets in London.

Patrizia is also seeking to expand its foreign investor base and has seen it almost double in the past 18 months, CEO Wolfgang Egger told PropertyEU. ‘Patrizia can act as an intermediary - not only between German or foreign capital and real estate markets and vice versa, but also between different foreign European markets. Institutional investors are increasingly recognizing the advantage of this.’

In 2012, Egger said that he aimed to boost Patrizia’s AUM to €10 bn by 2015. That target has now already been exceeded. Asked whether he could provide a new target for the next two to three years, Egger said: ‘Size is not a value in itself. For us, it’s about quality. We see ourselves as a pension fund that invests its own equity exclusively in real estate through many different co-investments. And we give other pension funds the opportunity to co-invest with us. Patrizia has grown continuously in recent years. We are now positioned to be able to grow organically by €1 bn each year. As a result, we have reached a size that allows us to have a local presence in the different markets and offer country-specific investment vehicles. This means that we can offer investors the platform that matches their wishes and requirements.’

The full interview appears in the October edition of PropertyEU. The full ranking of, and a special report on, PropertyEU's Top 100 rankings will be published at Expo Real.