Global alternative investment manager Cheyne Capital has held the final close for the ninth vintage of its real estate debt strategy.
The Cheyne Real Estate Credit Holdings (CRECH) IX Capital Solutions strategy raised a total of £3bn (€2.67bn) across the fund and adjacent vehicles.
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) anchored CRECH IX at its 2024 launch via a subsidiary, later commited additional capital to bring its total investment in the real estate debt strategy to £650m.
More than half of all investors’ capital has already been called and deployed into loans, Chayne said.
CRECH IX’s assets comprise 73 underlying loans, 16 of which have already been realised. The portfolio predominantly consists of senior loans backed by core, core-plus, value-add and development assets across the UK, Western Europe and the Nordics.
The strategy targets key real estate sectors, including hospitality, offices, student housing, residential and mixed-use developments.
Transactions in the CRECH IX portfolio include a £500m senior loan to Gamuda and Castleforge for the redevelopment of 75 London Wall, the UK headquarters of Deutsche Bank; a €289m senior loan to support the acquisition and repositioning of 91 Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris by MIMCO and Foncière Renaissance; senior loans of €136m and €134m respectively for the acquisition of five-star hotels in Lisbon, Portugal and on the Costa del Sol in Spain; and various purpose-built student accommodation projects, including schemes with Fusion Group in Brent Cross Town and Canada Water, London
CRECH IX has participated in these loans alongside other vehicles in the CRECH programme, including the CRECH VIII Senior Loan strategy, which remains in the market due to its longer-term structure.
Ravi Stickney, managing partner and CIO of real estate at Cheyne Capital, said: “The demand for scalable and reliable real estate financing solutions in Europe has never been more acute.
“The urgent need for our capital is evidenced by the speed with which CRECH IX and its adjacent vehicles are being deployed. European real estate debt markets have long suffered from a supply/demand imbalance and we are witnessing a further retreat of capital provision in today’s longer-term inflationary and volatile environment.
“We have immense gratitude for the trust and commitment of both our longstanding and new investors; their support enables us to provide borrowers with the capital to create, reposition and retain much-needed productive assets, rehabilitate and repurpose unproductive assets, and recapitalise unsustainable capital structures.”
Stuart Fiertz, co-founder and president of Cheyne Capital, added: “On behalf of [Cheyne’s other co-founder] Jonathan Lourie and myself, I would also like to thank our investors for their continued support and confidence in Cheyne.
“The successful close of CRECH IX enables us to maintain our focus on larger transactions where we see less competition from other lenders, leading to more attractive returns than we see in the more crowded, mid-market space. It also allows us to continue partnering with the world’s most established and experienced borrowers who are able to support our loans with significant equity investments in their best-in-class assets.”
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