M&G Investments announced today that Prupim, its property business, will be renamed M&G Real Estate, which takes effect from the end of June.
Alex Jeffrey, chief executive of Prupim, says the name change reflects the increasing collaboration with other parts of the M&G group to offer clients investment strategies with a real estate component.
Prupim is a top 20 international real estate investment manager with £17bn of assets under management. It invests in property on behalf of Prudential and external clients across Europe, the Asia Pacific region and North America.
According to the Financial Times, Prupim is close to a deal to buy more than 500 homes from the Berkeley Group, the UK’s largest housebuilder by market value, which the insurer will use to seed a vast rented property portfolio.
Mr Jeffrey said: “This is a logical step. Products for external clients are already marketed under the M&G brand. The change of name reflects how closely we work with our colleagues across the group.
“Over the past few years, Prupim has reshaped its business in line with M&G’s values so it is now appropriate to take on the M&G Real Estate name.
“As a specialist in real estate, we take an active approach to the ownership and management of property. This approach has enabled us to build a considerable third-party client business over the past few years. Today, we manage about £5 billion of assets on behalf of external investors across a range of investment strategies and geographies. Such business now represents nearly a third of our total assets under management.”
