Alternative investments firm EQT has raised €420m for its first real estate fund.
The Stockholm-headquartered company, known best for private equity and infrastructure funds, has launched its first property fund since recruiting the founders of property company Wainbridge.
EQT Real Estate I is pursuing a value-add strategy and has already invested 35% of the capital in four assets in Paris, Cologne and Stockholm.
The fund is focusing on office assets in gateway cities in western Europe.
EQT, which recently raised €4bn for a global infrastructure fund, hired Edouard Fernandez and Robert Rackind in 2015 to set up its real estate business.
Fernandez, partner and co-head of EQT Real Estate and investment adviser to the fund, said: “The European real estate segment has long been dominated by North American private equity firms.
“With this fund, the market gets a new and exciting pan-European challenger that will be able to take advantage of the EQT signature combination of global reach and local people on the ground.”
Rackind, also partner and co-head of EQT Real Estate and investment adviser to the fund — said the market outlook was very promising.
“There is a continued supply-demand imbalance combined with rental growth in gateway cities across Europe, and we see a big hands-on value creation potential,” he said.
The four investments already made are: an office refurbishment project in Rue Lauriston in central Paris; Smart Parc in western Paris, where two office buildings are being refurbished; Technologiepark Köln in Cologne, which involves a portfolio of seven income-producing office assets which are to be repositioned, and Täby Terass, studio apartments in the Stockholm area.
