UK/NETHERLANDS – The 160 billion-euro Dutch civil service pension fund Stichting Pensioenfonds ABP has continued its push into the UK real estate market with the acquisition of a stake in small-business landlord Workspace Group Plc.

The move follows ABP’s acquisition of a 4.48% stake in student accommodation company Unite Group last month.

It has emerged that ABP – via investment arm ABP Investments – has bought 569,227 shares in Workspace, or 3.37% of the issued ordinary shares capital of the company.

The pension fund declined to comment, saying it did not discuss allocation to single companies, but a spokesman said that at the end of the third quarter allocation to real estate amounted to about 10% of the portfolio, an investment in the region of 16 billion euros.

Workspace Group Plc, formerly known as London Industrial Plc, is the landlord of IPE International Publishers Ltd., publishers of IPE magazine and IPE.com.

Workspace was established in 1987 as the vehicle for the privatisation of part of the former Greater London Council’s industrial property portfolio.

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