GERMANY – Lindner, the firm headed by former Bayer Pensionskasse chief investment officer Jürgen Bader, is to handle portfolio management of a new real estate fund.

Germany’s LB ImmoInvest has launched the country’s first open-ended real estate fund that will invest in European projects jointly financed by the public and private sector – also known as Public Private Partnerships (PPPs).

Among the European PPPs the new fund plans to invest in are schools, town halls, courts and jails. LB ImmoInvest said that as the fund was focussed on secure rental income from these projects, it was ideally suited to the needs of institutional investors.

LB ImmoInvest, the real estate fund arm of publicly owned German banks (Landesbanken and Sparkassen), will distribute the fund. The asset manager Lindner will handle portfolio management for the fund.

For the fund’s PPP investments outside of Germany, Lindner will be supported by other European asset managers and project developers. By 2010, the fund plans to take in €500m in assets.

Bader said the fund aimed to realise an annual return of 5.5%, which was currently higher than that offered by other open-end real estate funds.

“I come from the institutional investor side, and what I hear from them constantly is that they want a product that can give them stable, long-term returns,” Bader told IPE. Until 2003, Bader was chief investment officer of Bayer Pensionskasse, the pension fund for German chemicals giant Bayer.

Bader added that both because of the fund’s target return and long-term orientation, it was particularly attractive to German pension funds and other organisations of this type.

Lindner, a provider of closed-end real estate funds, currently has €5.2bn in assets under management.