GLOBAL – UK investment management firm Orchard Street has been tasked with investing £250m (€303.6m) in commercial property within the UK for a Middle Eastern investor.

Orchard Street Investment Management, which specialises in commercial property, said it was launching a new £250m investment programme in partnership with the investor – which it has not named.

The capital will be deployed over the next 12-24 months, it said.

The firm said it would aim to buy assets with the potential to produce a net income return of more than 6% a year in the long term.

Indicating it would seek to add value to properties it bought for the investor, Orchard Street said it would stock-pick carefully across the UK, targeting assets that had “strong real estate fundamentals that will benefit from asset management initiatives”.

Philip Gadsden, managing partner of Orchard Street, said: “Whilst the launch of this programme is demonstrative of the enduring appeal of the UK commercial property market for international investors, we expect to be extremely active this year on behalf of all our clients.”

Gadsden said the firm had seen a clear improvement in business sentiment in the UK real estate market last year.

“We anticipate the growing trend of allocations to the sector to continue,” he said.