Alberta pension manager, Toronto firm buy ING’s half of Summit partnership

An Alberta pension manager and a Toronto company are buying the remaining half of the $2-billion Summit industrial property fund from ING Group, which says it’s withdrawing from real estate to focus on banking and insurance.

The Amsterdam-based financial giant owns 50 per cent of ING Summit Industrial Fund Limited Partnership outright and 7.8 per cent via an Australian fund that previously sold the other 50 per cent to the buyers, KingSett Capital and Alberta Investment Management Corp.

AIMCo is an Edmonton-based fund manager owned by the Alberta government that manages $69 billion in assets for pensions, endowments and government funds.

KingSett is a private Toronto-based fund manager focused on office, retail and industrial properties in Canada’s major markets.

Summit, which had been a publicly traded real-estate investment trust until it was bought by the Australian arm of the ING Group, owns about 400 industrial properties in or near large cities in Canada.

ING said in a statement from Amsterdam that the transaction values 100 per cent of Summit at C$2 billion, including debt.

ING also said it will sell ING Real Estate Canada _ which had managed Summit _ to KingSett and AIMCo for an undisclosed sum.

“This transaction is in line with ING’s stated objective of reducing its exposure to the real estate industry,” ING chief executive Jan Hommen said in a statement.

Hommen said the deal would close in the fourth quarter pending regulatory approval and he didn’t expect it would have a material impact on ING’s earnings.

The Australian seller is ING Industrial Fund. After the sale ING won’t own any of that fund.