Investment group Abrdn said it has further expanded its Living business within its real estate team with the acquisition of a student/co-living asset in Cergy, in the suburbs of Paris.

This latest acquisition takes Abrdn’s total residential property investments to more than €10 billion.

The asset was purchased on behalf of investors in the €1.7 billion Abrdn Pan-European Residential Fund (aPER), one of the largest residential real estate portfolios in the market in Europe.

The Cergy campus is one of the biggest in the Ile-de-France region after Paris, with train connections to the capital in 30 minutes. Cergy has around 13 higher education and research institutions for 30,000 students.

Abrdn manages more than £32 billion in real estate investments.

In total, Abrdn manages and administers £507 billion of assets for clients.

“The fund is highly diversified, with 49 assets across 30 cities and 10 countries and a strategy backed up by abrdn’s expert global research team,” said Abrdn.

“Over the past 12 months, Abrdn has won £1bn in new third-party real estate mandates – of which a significant proportion was for investment into the residential sector.”

In October, the company announced that it had been awarded a mandate by Dutch pension fund PGGM to manage a portfolio of 3,300 rental homes in Japan.

 Marc Pamin, CEO of Living at Abrdn, said: “We believe the tide has turned for global real estate and see the residential sector as one of the key beneficiaries in this new cycle.

“Living is one of our highest conviction calls for long-term real estate allocation because of the ongoing supply and demand imbalance and demographic change.

“As this latest acquisition shows, we also see strong potential in European purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA). Low provision rates in countries like France, Germany and Italy suggest significant growth potential across the continent.

“At Abrdn, we have been strengthening our Living business over almost three decades, growing the team, expanding our presence globally and building out our research capabilities.

“As one of Europe’s largest residential managers, we believe we are uniquely placed to identify and secure the best opportunities which we believe are likely to perform well over the coming years.”