Catella Residential Investment Management’s European Residential III fund has received its first commitment from outside Germany, with a €40 million capital injection from France’s Primonial REIM.

The fund, Catella’s maiden pan-European residential vehicle, is targeting at least €1 billion in investments across European residential real estate markets. It launched with €50 million in seed capital from a German pension plan, which has also made a top-up of €20 million, and had its first close in July.

Michael Fink, managing director at Catella, said that the manager expected to be able to announce further new investors alongside Primonial REIM in the near future. “There is extremely strong investor demand for the fast-growing and defensive living sector of real estate assets in a world of very low, or negative, investment yields, particularly in fixed- income products,” he sa