OMERS to Expand Investments in Italy With Acquisition of Transit and Advertising Network

The Ontario Municipal Employees’ Retirement System announced Tuesday it will be acquiring Grandi Stazioni Retail, an Italian company which manages commercial and advertising space in Italian train hubs.

The acquisition is being made by OMERS Infrastructure and an infrastructure fund managed by German investment manager DWS; the transaction is expected to close at the end of the year.

The investment will be OMERS Infrastructure’s first in Italy and its 19th in Europe. Grandi Stazioni Retail’s assets include 190,000 square meters of leasable space across 800 commercial units in 14 train hubs across 11 cities and 1,800 media assets, which include billboards and advertising space within train stations.

The duo will acquire 100% of the company from investment firms Antin Infrastructure Partners, Borletti Group and ICAMAP. The company was privatized by the trio in a 953-million-euro ($1.03 billion) acquisition in 2016, a time when the Italian government sought to sell off billions of dollars’ worth of state assets.

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“We are delighted to be partnering with DWS to acquire Grandi Stazioni Retail. The acquisition is highly consistent with the OMERS Infrastructure strategy and will be an excellent complement to our world-class portfolio of infrastructure investments,” said Michael Hill, OMERS’ executive vice president and global head of infrastructure, in a statement.

OMERS’ infrastructure group had C$36 billion ($26.20 billion) in assets under management across 10 countries as of December 31, 2023, representing 21% of OMERS assets. The whole pension fund has C$128 billion ($93.16 billion) in assets. In February, the fund reported a 5.5% return in its infrastructure portfolio in calendar year 2023.

The investment will mark OMERS Infrastructure’s 14th global transportation-related asset. Other OMERS Infrastructure portfolio companies include the Port of Melbourne, London City Airport and Bangalore International Airport.