EXPO 2013: Allianz is planning to increase its real estate lending business to €5bn (£4.2bn) in the next two to three years, said Olivier Piani, CEO at Allianz Real Estate at EXPO 2013 in Munich.
The company’s lending division has already acquired loans with a total volume of €1bn in the past few months with a focus on long-term, sustainable debt.
Roland Fuchs, head of European real estate finance, who recently joined the company from Helaba, said that Allianz was planning to stay in the financing business on a long-term basis but would not try to compete with banks, seeing them instead as potential partners.
Allianz will focus on financing facilities with a 50% to 65% LTV and aims to find financing opportunities with banks.
In an overview of the company’s real estate activities in across its international portfolio, Germany CEO Stefan Brendgen said that owing to high prices for property in Germany, the company was expanding into Poland and Scandinavia.
In Poland, the company said it was looking at cities outside Warsaw. In Sweden Allianz was selling real estate in Stockholm and was looking at niche markets outside in Scandinavia for acquisitions.
Regarding the Chinese market, Allianz said that it was observing the big cities but was not convinced that now was the best time to invest.
The company said it would revisit the decision to invest in China in 2015 and 2016.
