Need Help: Commercial Real Estate As Insurance Company Investment

[rekurz]

Agents:

I am taking a dive into the dark on this one. I have a colleague with whom I worked many years ago in a different field, who is now a broker for commercial real estate in Berlin, Germany. He deals with commercial properties selling for $20-30 million.

He recently informed me that it's not uncommon for insurance companies to invest into large commercial real estate in order to build capital; i.e., as owners of property, they profit from the rent paid by retail companies, other businesses, and government offices who occupy the property.

I would like to help him, but I am not a broker nor am I familiar with insurance companies enough to know who handles company capital investments.

Can anyone point me in the right direction, or add context to this matter? In other words, what element of an insurance company's hierarchy would deal with such investments?

Thanks in advance to anyone who can offer me some pespective on this.

Respectfully,
Rob Kurz

 

[jhuang]

You're friend is right, they do hold real estate as part of their portfolio and growth techniques. However, getting his name into the folks maybe harder than he thinks. Hope he's with a well branded commercial RE Company that has the connections because as the retail agent, we don't even talk to people in that realm.

 

[rekurz]

...Thanks! Your post gives me context on this already, even if it means that this quest will be quite challenging. ...I guess I would need to know what exactly is that "realm"?