NPS confirms co-investment in Prague office building via LaSalle fund

South Korea’s National Pension Service (NPS) confirmed a co-investment in an office building in Prague, Czech Republic, through a real estate fund of LaSalle Investment Management, in a deal reportedly worth €57 million ($64 million).

LaSalle has bought the River Garden I building in Prague for a discretionary co-investment mandate to invest €300 million in value-add investments, IPE Real Estate reported last week.

It acquired the 19,200-square-meter building from IAD Investments, a Slovak company, in the first investment by the value-add fund in the Czech Republic, according to the report.

NPS has committed an unspecified amount of capital to the Europe-focused LaSalle fund.

An NPS source told the Korean Investors on June 12 that it participated in the transaction as a co-investor via the fund, but declined to give further details such as its equity ownership in the building.

The eight-story office property, built in 2012, is in the Karlin business district.

“The outstanding performance of our alternative investments is attributable in large part to overseas real estate portfolios,” Korean news agency News1 quoted an NPS source as saying. “Beyond western Europe such as the UK and France, we are expanding our investment into southern and northern Europe including Spain and Sweden.”

NPS manages around 19 trillion won ($17 billion) in global real estate investment at end-2016.

NPS and other largest South Korean asset investors are boosting co-investments in overseas alternatives for better returns and more control over their invested assets.

Recently NPS agreed to deploy $100 million for co-investment with Rockpoint Group, in addition to its commitment of $200 million to a real estate fund of the Boston-based investment firm.