Brunswick Real Estate Ventures launches pan-European investment company

Brunswick Real Estate Ventures has launched a pan-European investment company, Europi Property Group, focusing on value-add and opportunistic deals across all sectors. Launched in September, the initiative builds upon several successful investments in Spain, Belgium and the UK over the past five years, which have all been done in separate structures. Europi Property Group (‘EPG’) will lead all value-add and opportunistic deals going forward, working with local asset management partners across Europe. EPG is structured as a private investment company and not as a closed-ended fund, which enables a more efficient capital structure as the portfolio grows.

To lead the new initiative, Brunswick has hired Jonathan Willén as CEO. Jonathan joins from Blackstone in London, where he was a Principal in their European real estate private equity group and has extensive experience across multiple countries and sectors. Jonathan started his career in investment banking in London in 2009 and builds upon a broad industry network and institutional real estate experience. EPG’s team will be based in London and Jonathan comments “It’s incredibly exciting to launch EPG and we have all the ingredients to create a really successful European real estate investment company. We already have a large deal pipeline across Europe, which we’re working on alongside an excellent network of local partners”

Willem De Geer, CEO of Brunswick Ventures and chairman of the board of EPG, has lead Brunswick’s European transactions to date and has been instrumental in launching the company. Willem comments “We continue to see really compelling deals across Europe. To work alongside local partners, focusing on markets we find the most interesting (currently the UK) and build a real estate investment company with a really talented CEO fits our investment philosophy very well”.