GLOBAL - Australia's Goodman Group and the UK's Legal & General have raised £350m (€383m) of equity for real estate fund Arlington Business Park Partnership (ABPP).

The move, produced mainly via an asset-for-equity swap, is designed to strengthen ABPP's long-term position and maintain liquidity levels during the difficult market environment.

Bill Hughes, managing director for Legal & General Property, said: "The initiatives, agreed through consultation with our investors, will position the fund to maintain good levels of liquidity through the ongoing market downturn and enhance its appeal to new investors when markets stabilise."

The Goodman Group, which owns, develops and manages industrial properties globally, has agreed measures with ABPP to modernise the fund to bring it in line with the group's other fund management products.

Micheal O'Sullivan, the chief executive officer for Goodman Group in Europe, said: "The transaction is consistent with similar initiatives undertaken by the Goodman Group over 2008 to strengthen the funds."

These included the €90m swap into the Goodman European Logistics Fund.

Goodman also successfully refinanced $450m (€337m) of debt for its Goodman Australia Industrial Fund, in which it is the main investor and has partnerships with offshore pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and Australian superannuation funds.

Greg Goodman, CEO for the Goodman Group, said the company's fund management platform is "well capitalised with a total of $130m of debt maturing across all funds in calendar year 2009."

The refinancing extends the fund's average debt duration from 1.6 years to 2.2 years, with the next maturity not due until March 2010.

 

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