LaSalle Investment Management is planning to launch its fourth European real estate debt fund later this year, targetting a €1bn fundraise.
The manager said the LaSalle Real Estate Debt Strategies (LREDS III) fund – which raised over £800m of commitments in 2017 – has provided over €200m of mezzanine loans to refinance three portfolios of Mileway, Blackstone’s last-mile European logistics real estate business.
The portfolios include 264 assets located in key urban locations throughout Germany, Netherlands, France and Denmark.
LaSalle said the LREDS III fund, which has committed over £360m of loans to date in 2019, is ahead in terms of its deployment schedule.
“This accelerates the fundraising for the successor fund in the series, LREDS IV, which has a target capital raise of €1bn and is set to launch later this year,” the company said.
Ali Imraan, managing director, debt investments and special situations at LaSalle said: “We’re delighted to provide financing to Blackstone in the build-up of their strategic European last-mile logistics portfolio, Mileway.
“These three mezzanine loans follow on from two previous financings of the same strategy that we have done for Blackstone in 2018 in the UK, Germany and Netherlands. It also underlines our ability to underwrite large pan-European portfolios, leveraging the breadth of our European business.”
Amy Klein Aznar, head of debt investments and special situations at LaSalle said: “We have been large and consistent providers of debt in the European logistic space and these latest investments are a continuation of our support for Blackstone, which started with the build-up of the Logicor logistics portfolio in 2012.
“Overall, we have arranged over £700m of financings over the past several years in European Logistics for our LREDS and Whole Loan series across all major Western European countries.”
