PensionDanmark has sold a large residential portfolio in Copenhagen to Nordic Real Estate Partners (NREP).

The portfolio of more than 700 apartments was bought by NREP on behalf of Danish pension funds and, IP Real Estate understands, Partners Group.

The latter declined to comment.

PensionDanmark, which has invested in the residential sector since 2006, sold the 73,000sqm portfolio to allow it to develop new residential projects without exceeding its allocation to the sector.

The pension fund is currently committed to the development of 600 homes over the next two years at Copenhagen’s Islands Brygge.

Torben Möger Pedersen, chief executive at PensionDanmark, said the sale of the portfolio would generate a “healthy profit”, while allowing it to develop new residential projects.

Neither NREP or PensionDanmark revealed a price for the portfolio sale, the biggest recorded in Denmark this year.

The portfolio is concentrated in Copenhagen but includes properties in Aarhus Harbour, Kanalfronten in Vejle and Horisonten in Ørestad.

A report by JLL’s Danish alliance partner, Sadolin & Albæk, outlined the investment case for Denmark’s residential sector, with Copenhagen leading the recovery.

“The Copenhagen market for ownership housing is now recovering,” Sadolin & Albæk said in the report, released earlier this year.

“The Danish economy is also firmly on the road to recovery, and in most Copenhagen districts, the prices of residential, owner-occupied flats have climbed back to pre-crisis levels.”

Copenhagen is, it added, set to see a population boom of 220,000 new residents by 2040.

Development of new residential property is, it added, still “far below the pre-crisis level”.