NORTH AMERICA - Acadia Realty Trust has beaten its capital raising target for the Acadia Strategic Opportunity Fund IV by securing $541m (€438m) of commitments.
Jon Grisham, chief financial officer at Acadia, cited two factors behind the success: "One is that we had a lot of repeat investors in the fund that were happy with our previous track record. Our experience also created some word of mouth business from new investors."
Acadia committed $125m of its own equity to the fund.
The fund, which attracted a combination of endowments, foundations, pension funds, investment management firms and family offices, has a projected 10-year lifetime and aims to generate returns in the mid-teens.
Once leveraged, the new opportunity fund will have a purchase power of around $1.5bn, targeting retail assets in the US. Assets could include shopping centers, stand-alone retail properties and mixed-use projects that might have office and retail components.
The fund, currently holding no properties, will consider a variety of deals according to Grisham. "In some cases this will include either a distressed or motivated seller," he said.
"It could be buying debt or using equity to purchase a property. There also will be situations where we improve the tenants in a property by bringing in a new anchor."
For the most part, the fund will look for transactions on a regional basis in the Northeast of the country, including Washington, DC, Boston and Chicago, but may consider deals in other markets.
Arcadia employed a similar reach with its previous fund, acquiring a property in Miami's South Beach. However, the markets must be almost exclusively densely populated and offer constrained retail supply, the company said.
