GLOBAL – European and US investors have backed Moorfield Group's latest opportunistic real estate fund with £100m (€118m) in a bid to generate returns of 15-20%.
UK-focused Moorfield hopes to raise a further £150m from global investors and might also enter into co-investments and joint ventures to increase its investment scale.
Moorfield Real Estate Fund III will follow on from Moorfield's two previous funds that invest in traditional and alternative real estate in the UK. Some, if not all, of the capital raised has come from existing Moorfield fund investors.
The fund manager is now in a position to begin deploying capital and in the meantime hopes to more than double its investment capital by attracting interest from investors outside Europe and the US.
Marc Gilbard, CEO of Moorfield, said: "We expect second and subsequent closes to follow shortly as the fund is now live and originating investments opportunities."
Gilbard said Moorfield had been "approached by various other organisations who would like to invest alongside" the fund, and so "the size of the investment opportunities and the total assets under management will very likely be larger than the size of the fund alone would suggest".
MREF III can invest directly in single or multiple assets or indirectly through corporate vehicles, including joint ventures, with a value-add and opportunistic strategy. Moorfield can also provide mezzanine and structured finance solutions and acquire debt where appropriate.
The fund will seek generate internal rates of return of 15-20% and a two-times equity multiple.
