EUROPE – Tristan Capital Partners is close to finishing its capital-raising programme for its latest real estate fund, which could reach as much as €950m.
It will be the latest European opportunistic fund, in less than a month, to attract close to €1bn in equity from investors; Orion Capital Managers recently announced the closing of its latest vehicle at €1.3bn.
The strategy of Tristan Capital's European Property Investors Special Opportunities III fund is to target "value-add investments and distress opportunities arising from the shortage of debt and equity capital".
Orion Capital's Fund IV is, according to the manager, "able to invest in the full spectrum of real estate assets, loans, portfolios or real estate companies across Europe".
The successful fund launches reflect the increased interest in opportunistic strategies focused on Europe.
They also undermine the theory the traditional real estate fund model in Europe is broken, with larger investors favouring joint ventures, club deals and separate accounts.
Internos Global Investors recently claimed 2013 had ushered in "a complicity of positive trends [that had] transformed prospects for real estate funds in Europe".
Internos co-founder Andrew Thornton cited a number of factors reinforcing investors' needs for funds, including a growing focus on alternative sectors, debt strategies and a move beyond low-yielding prime markets.
Writing in the company's regular 'Decisive Eye' publication, Thornton said: "Each of the above will call for highly localised or specialised skills only realistically available in the form of a real estate fund and asset manager."
He added: "In 2008-09, it seemed as if real estate fund management was self-immolating in a furnace of investor mistrust, falling valuations, enforced asset sales and tougher regulation. In 2013, we see a phoenix fund industry rising from the ashes of recession."
Thornton said Germany was playing a "key role in fund resurgence" due to the necessity of local expertise in what is "a dispersed economy with no dominant metropolis".
"Opportunity for the foreign investors lies, for example, in regional retail or specialist real estate," he said.
"Here lies the appeal of a fund manager with a German asset team able to operate 'close to the dirt'."
