Gulf markets will be kept out of the new expansion plans of German real estate fund manager DIFA, part of Germany's second-largest fund manager Union Investment.
The decision on the part of DIFA to expand to Asia and North America to diversify its European portfolio was recently revealed by a senior fund manager, however the Gulf region was left out of future plans.
DIFA announced earlier this week that it had entered the South Korean property market by buying a commercial asset in Seoul for almost 63 million euros ($81 million), according to Reuters.
"We increasingly invest in foreign growth markets such as recently Mexico or for the first time South Korea last week where you can get higher returns than in European core markets," said DIFA board member Reinhard Kutscher.
Kutscher added that it had decided not to invest at the current time in the booming Dubai property market.
"With the rise of Dubai to a regional financial hub, much local money is pouring into the [property] market, lifting prices to rise so that an investment doesn't seem worthy for us," he said.
Germany's open-ended real estate funds have seen a drain this year after two funds were temporarily frozen. DIFA has a total of 13 billion euros under management in five funds.
