NEW YORK, Aug. 05, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Apollo European Principal Finance Fund III (“Apollo EPF III”), a fund managed by affiliates of Apollo Global Management, Inc. (together with its consolidated subsidiaries, “Apollo”) (NYSE:APO), today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement with the Italian pension fund Fondazione Ente Nazionale di Previdenza ed Assistenza dei Medici e degli Odontoiatri (“ENPAM”) to acquire ENPAM’s directly owned portfolio of real estate assets (the “Portfolio”) for €842 million.
The Portfolio comprises 68 high-quality commercial and residential assets, including hotel, retail, logistics and parking assets primarily located in the economic hubs of Rome and Milan.
“We are pleased to reach this agreement with Apollo to help deliver on our primary objective of providing retirement income to ENPAM pensioners”, said Chairman of the pension fund Alberto Oliveti. “As we prepare to reach the peak of retirement for our members, this divestment allows us to realize important savings and to allocate the proceeds towards diversified, mission-related investments that will offer adequate reserves and returns to meet our commitments. We look to the future with even greater peace of mind”.
Skardon Baker, Head of European Principal Finance, said, “This transaction demonstrates our ability to source and execute unique, complex opportunities that expand our European real estate portfolio and exemplifies Apollo EPF’s continued commitment to working with European financial institutions to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes, in this case using our transitionary capital to provide ENPAM with greater liquidity and financial flexibility to serve its pension members. We remain focused on broadening our European portfolio and building on our strong foundation of successful strategic real estate investments in Italy”.
“These high-quality properties in prime locations with strong alternative use potential are a great fit for our multi-disciplinary asset management capabilities. With a truly heterogenous portfolio composition and increased market demand, we are confident that this group of assets will be attractive to tenants as well as local and international investors”, continued Samuele Cappelletti of Apollo.
Apollo’s European Principal Finance business is the second largest, closed-end fund franchise within Apollo, following only the flagship private equity funds, with $7 billion of assets under management as of June 30, 2021. The EPF funds sit at the crossroads and tap all three of Apollo’s three business strategies: yield, hybrid and opportunistic. The first EPF fund launched in 2009 and was created to capture a broad range of opportunities arising from distress, deleveraging and the realignment of financial service models. Since inception, the EPF funds have invested over $9 billion of capital.
Advisors to the Apollo Funds in this transaction included
Realty Partners, with the support of JLL and Conio, as commercial advisors; Lazard as financial advisor; Belvedere Inzaghi as legal diligence advisor; BonelliErede and Vinson & Elkins as transaction counsel; and BonelliErede for tax advisory.
Duff & Phelps acted as an independent evaluator and Deloitte Financial Advisory acted as financial advisor to ENPAM. Angelo Piazza, Luca Leone and Paola Conio acted as legal counsel and Stefano Petrecca (CBA) as tax advisor to ENPAM.
The transaction is expected to close by year end.
