The offices of Deutsche Finance in Munich were raided by the Munich Public Prosecutor’s office as part of an investigation involving massive losses on a U.S. real estate portfolio into which Bayerische Versorgungskammer, the German pension fund better known as BVK, poured nearly $2B.
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Deutsche Finance confirmed the raid was carried out on Tuesday in a brief statement that says it was searched as a “third party” to the case, that it was cooperating with authorities and that it “has been in contact with them for some time.”
Deutsche Finance America filed a lawsuit in September against BVK in Delaware Superior Court for breach of contract, defamation, deceptive trade practices and a host of other claims related to its alleged mismanagement of the real estate porfolio that led to more than $1B in losses.
BVK invested $1.9B in seven projects through a partnership with Deutsche Finance America and developer Michael Shvo, whose real estate empire has been battered by lawsuits and shed its core assets.
The portfolio included San Francisco’s Transamerica Pyramid, which Shvo's eponymous development firm sold for $691M in April at a loss for the ownership group that had poured more than $1B into the iconic tower. Shvo also sold the site of the historic Raleigh Hotel in Miami Beach in October 2025 after a plan to rehabilitate and redevelop the property into a $2B project collapsed amid poor sales.
Other Shvo projects, like a Mandarin Oriental condo tower in Manhattan, drew high-profile complaints at the same time that the developer was engaged in a scathing legal battle with private club operator Core Club over a planned location in the Transamerica Pyramid.
BVK, Germany’s largest pension fund, said in February that its total losses from the investments with Shvo exceeded $1B and that it was looking to exit its relationship with the developer.
Other assets in the portfolio included the Mandarin Oriental Residences in Beverly Hills and the Coca-Cola building in Manhattan.
In its September lawsuit, Deutsche Finance alleged that BVK’s mismanagement of the U.S. portfolio included failing to provide oversight on operating budgets, refinancing decisions and proposed leases. BVK misled Deutsche Finance about its involvement in the investments and hid that it controlled leasing, construction, financing, pricing and capital decisions at the projects, the suit says.
BVK firmly rejected the allegations at the time and said they constituted “an obvious attempt by Deutsche Finance to divert attention from its own responsibility and its numerous, publicly known challenges.”
The losses at BVK have drawn attention across Germany, including from investigators, Bloomberg reported. The pension fund oversees $137B in retirement assets for 2.8 million people.
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