Aberdeen property buy reflects market revival hopes

By Sinead Cruise

LONDON (Reuters) - Aberdeen's (ADN.L: Quote, Profile, Research) takeover of Goodman Property Investors GPI.L coincides with a bout of real estate market turmoil but the time is right to raise the stakes in UK property fund management, the CEO of Aberdeen's property unit said.

In an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, Rickard Backlund, chief executive of Aberdeen Property Investors, said the 89 million pound acquisition of rival GPI reflected an ambition to lead from the front in a 2009 UK property market recovery.

"It is the right time to invest. We have been looking to acquire a business like this for quite a while, but we haven't found the prices reasonable," said Backlund.

"But we think this is a fair price and we feel in a position to grow this business aggressively when the market comes back in roughly a year or so. We are preparing ourselves for that recovery now," he said.

The deal catapults Aberdeen Asset Management into the top ten of the world's biggest real estate asset managers. Post completion, the group will also be Britain's second largest property asset manager behind Aviva's (AV.L: Quote, Profile, Research) Morley Fund Management.

Backlund said GPI's appeal was underpinned by similarity in operations and strategy as well as its strong presence in Britain -- a market where Aberdeen has lacked critical mass since it sold a large chunk of its UK property business to Arlington Securities four years ago.

This business was later rebranded as Arlington Property Investors and subsequently acquired by Australia's Goodman Group in December 2005, after which it was renamed Goodman Property Investors.

"For a long time we have had an ambition to become a truly European asset manager, but without a strong presence in the UK, we couldn't really say that. That was a missing part of our business," said Backlund.