Norway fund, Axa eye European debt

[LONDON] The manager of Norway's sovereign wealth fund, the world's largest, formed a venture with Axa Real Estate Investment Managers to invest in European commercial real estate debt as borrowers seek to refinance maturing loans.

Norges Bank Investment Management and Axa Real Estate, the property unit of Europe's second-largest insurer, will invest in loans as large as 600 million euros (S$1 billion) in individual senior loans and will focus on the UK, France and Germany, Axa Real Estate said in a statement on Tuesday.

The amount of property debt maturing in Europe through 2014 exceeds available funding by US$50 billion, broker DTZ said in a June report. The shortage creates wider profit margins, attracting insurers, debt funds and sovereign wealth funds.