Kempen Capital Management, the investment management arm of Van Lanschot Kempen, will provide investors in Germany and Austria with access to established strategies such as small-cap equity, euro credit or high-dividend equity, in addition to niche asset classes as it moves forward with its planned expansion in the two countries.
Niche asset classes include listed Infrastructure, listed real estate or private markets.
The listed Infrastructure strategy offers investors protection from inflation, with relatively high income streams, often inflation-linked, and a lower risk profile compared with a global equity portfolio, Guido van Aubel, managing director wholesale and institutional clients at Van Lanschot Kempen, told IPE.
“We strongly believe that Kempen’s capabilities in these areas can add unique value to client portfolios,” he added.
Kempen’s expansion into Germany and in Austria also means adding to the team; Michael Schlieper has been named director, business development, to provide services to banks, wealth managers and institutional investors in the region.
It is actively targeting wholesale and institutional markets in the Netherlands, UK, France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland and the Nordics. Last year it named Thomas Poulsen as the person responsible for business development in the Scandinavian region.
Kempen Capital Management has traditionally covered the German and Austrian markets from the Netherlands and the UK.
“We see great opportunities for growth in these markets [and] as part of our growth plans we might add more resources,” van Aubel said.
In Germany, Kempen is observing that, with inflation high on the agenda of many investors, real assets, real estate and infrastructure specifically, are increasingly under the radar of investors because they protect from inflation.
“In our approach two things are crucial. First, is sustainability, given the significant contribution to total carbon emissions, this asset class needs change,” van Aubel said.
Kempen invests in companies that have a role in the transition to a green economy, actively engaging with the firms to set up carbon-reduction plans and meet targets.
The second pillar of Kempen’s approach is data, van Aubel explained. “Our proprietary data infrastructure allows us to collect relevant data points about buildings, locations and also climate risk, to enable us to objectively spot mispricing opportunities across the world.”
Institutional investors and pension funds tend to consider private markets as a route to diversify allocations, avoiding equity market volatility while still hunting for returns.
“In our view, volatility in the underlying NAV is still there despite infrequent pricing. Therefore, we put a lot of emphasis on fundamental investing, lower idiosyncratic risk and less of the mega-fund leveraged model,” van Aubel said.
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