Greenman Investments, the Irish manager behind a German retail property fund where redemptions are frozen, has hired a new chief executive as the flagship portfolio advances the sale of about €160 million of assets to begin meeting withdrawal requests.
Neil O’Keeffe, a former corporate lawyer and funds industry specialist, succeeds company cofounder Johnnie Wilkinson, who remains an executive director, with a focus on the different fund strategies.
“Neil brings deep knowledge of legal and regulatory issues, especially when it comes to cross-border fund structuring and organisation,” said Wilkinson.
The appointment comes as Greenman Open, the firm’s main fund, with €1.25 billion of German supermarket properties and backed by about 8,000 Irish investors, is progressing the sale of 14 buildings worth about €160 million. That is close to 13 per cent of the total portfolio value. Tenants of the fund include Aldi, Lidl, Edeka and Rewe.
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O’Keffe, who most recently served as fund servicer Apex Group’s head of legal for capital markets and corporate solutions, told The Irish Times the fund expects to sign sale agreements in April and close in early June, enabling it to start meeting long-standing redemption requests. These date as far back as late 2024 and had been due – following a six-month notice period – in July.
The fund plans to start the sale of another portfolio in August, which should close in early 2027, he said. A third collection of properties is likely to be marketed next year.
The fund has €140 million of redemption requests outstanding – equating to almost one-fifth of its €730 million net asset value, after borrowings are stripped out. The firm is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland, while the fund is regulated in Luxembourg.
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The Greenman Open fund activated an official so-called redemption gate – or suspension – late last year, after being met by a spike in withdrawal requests in the third quarter.
This follows three developments: a delay in repayments due in July as the fund sought to preserve cash as it moved to a new system for investors to buy and sell units of the fund; several investors who had piled in during the Covid-19 pandemic looking to cash in after a three-year lock-up; and, crucially, according to the firm, Aviva removing the fund from a key investment platform.
O’Keeffe said the fund’s key problem has been distribution, which it is advancing plans to address, rather than performance. The portfolio has a 93 per cent occupancy rate, well in advance of the European retail average of 80 per cent, according to the firm.
The manager sees the fund’s conversion last year into a European long-term investment fund, which allows for an EU-wide distribution to professional and retail investors under a single passport, as key to boosting liquidity. It expects to reopen for subscriptions in August.
Greenman also has a fledgling European supermarkets fund, targeting France, Germany and Poland, and has a number of other funds in the pipeline, including a renewable energy infrastructure fund earmarked for launch in April.
