CDP Real Asset at the Real Estate & Finance Summit organised by the Sole24Ore Group

Summary

The activities and actions of CDP Real Asset in the Italian real estate sector as an engine for growth: a player capable of developing innovative projects and working alongside private market operators, while also succeeding in attracting additional capital from Europe to meet the needs of the territory and the community, also and above all acting in favour of the so-called “grey zone”, namely citizens-users with no access to the free market.

The CDP Group’s real estate branch is part of a complex economic environment that is constantly evolving and subject to strong external variables (rates, trade tariffs, international geopolitical scenario) that affect all the main asset classes in the market: residential, commercial, logistics, data centres and proptech.

These topics were the focus of discussions during the six work sessions of the seventh edition of the Real Estate & Finance Summit, organised on Wednesday the 26th by the Sole24Ore Group in Milan, at Palazzo Giurenconsulti, with the participation of Filippo Catena, Head of Fondi Abitare Sociale (Social Housing Funds) of CDP Real Asset SGR, speaking on the panel “Operating Real Estate: the virtuous cycle in real estate development”.

“In the area of social infrastructure, as CDP Real Asset, we operate through the fund-of-funds instrument, acting on an additionality and complementarity basis to create a multiplier effect for the resources available to the market. Consequently, our scope of intervention is wide-ranging and extends not only to traditional sustainable housing but also to those ancillary services that transform housing space into veritable incubators of relationships and social belonging”, emphasised Catena, who spoke on the panel together with Elena Cattani, Regional Development Director Italy of The Social Hub, Filippo Mattioli, CEO of Promos, and Stefano Sirolli, CEO and co-founder of RealStep Sgr, as part of the programme of works of the “Real Estate & Finance Summit 2025”.

“As CDP Real Asset, we were the first, together with banking foundations, to invest and believe in the development of social housing in Italy to meet the needs of individuals, families and local communities. But the housing component is not the only strategic choice behind the investments we support, because the real goal is to provide residents with services that create community. In this respect, the presence of the project manager is fundamental from the very first steps of the design phases of an urban regeneration project aimed at identifying and managing housing spaces,” added Catena, who then emphasised that “senior housing will be a new asset class in the Italian market, and at CDP Real Asset we have already made commitments in this respect through two projects, one in Rome and one in Milan, with the aim of guaranteeing a series of ancillary services focused on the over-65 and self-sufficient segment of users, offering more affordable residential solutions”.