BentallGreenOak has raised €695m from more than 20 global investors for its debut European core-plus logistics real estate fund.
The real estate investment manager said it had overshot its €500m capital-raising target for the closed-ended European Core+ Logistics Fund.
BentallGreenOak has invested more than €2.4bn in European logistics since 2015 through its pan-European value-add strategy, but the new fund marks a move into core-plus.
Toby Phelps, managing partner and head of European equity, said the core-plus strategy was “very complementary” to its existing value-add activities through which it had built up “local, on-the-ground relationships and knowledge of the sector”.
He said: “We saw opportunities in this core-plus space – more stabilised assets that we really felt we could capitalise on for the benefit of our investors. It was very much the continued evolution of our overall approach to the sector that led us to this strategy.”
BentallGreenOak was born out of the 2018 merger of Bentall Kennedy and GreenOak Real Estate, each of which had a history of specialising in core property and higher-return real estate, respectively. GreenOak Real Estate raised its first European value-add fund, with a focus on Spain, in 2015.
“We’ve been investing capital in the logistics since 2015 – probably one of the first institutional investors to focus on the sector,” said Francesco Ostuni, managing partner and European equity CIO at BentallGreenOak.
“That expertise and that track record has given us somewhat of an edge… we’re very much an integrated operator, hands-on asset manager of our investments, which I think, particularly in this sector, is extremely important.
“Leveraging our local knowledge, leveraging our relationship with tenants, [we have] oftentimes been able to see opportunities ahead of the market.”
This week, BentallGreenOak acquired a 19,600sqm logistics property in Sweden.
Logistics has been one of the fastest growing sectors in terms of assets under management of real estate investment managers. This week, Nuveen Real Estate announced it had raised further capital from German investors for its new European logistics strategy and made its first investment.
“Over the past six, seven years, there has definitely been evolution of investor sentiment towards the asset class and lender sentiment towards the asset class,” Ostuni said.
“The institutionalisation of the asset class, which we saw early on, [has] been fascinating to see.”
The new core-plus fund will target a range of types of properties, including e-commerce, last-mile, temperature-controlled and distribution assets.
More than 50% of the fund’s capital has already been deployed through the acquisition of 28 assets in France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and the UK.
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