Crossbay, the pan-European urban logistics platform of private equity real estate manager MARK, has raised €660m in the final close of its latest fund.
The capital raised for the Crossbay II fund, represents a 20% increase in size compared to the previous fund in the series. With debt financing, Crossbay II has a total investment capacity of over €1.5bn.
MARK Capital Management said Crossbay II attracted new investors, including pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds and family offices from Europe, Asia and the US. CBRE Investment Management Indirect Real Estate Strategies, the fund’s largest investor, was among the fund’s returning investors.
The manager said the fund is on track to be over 60% committed by the end of the year, with a focus on single-user distribution centres in urban areas of European gateway cities.
Including its near-term pipeline, Crossbay II manages around €1bn in assets across the UK, France, Benelux, Germany, Spain and Italy, it added.
Crossbay CEO Marco Riva said: “The fundraise will allow us to aggregate fundamentally granular and hard-to-access assets to create a second institutional-grade portfolio.
“We have been tactically deploying throughout this period and are already almost 60% committed, giving investors in the fund exposure to what we believe will prove to be an exceptional vintage for a strategy like ours.”
Marcus Meijer, Crossbay chairman and MARK Capital Management CEO, said: “While there is a brightening macro-economic outlook and clear tailwinds behind urban logistics, we recognise uncertainty remains and so would like to thank our investors for placing their trust in us. We are seeing enhanced investor appetite to work with specialist managers raising tactical funds with a tight thematic focus to access growth opportunities within real estate.
“This was the rationale behind our pivot away from diversified funds and into sector-specific strategies like Crossbay, with the latest fund surpassing the last in size and attracting a more geographically diverse investor base, positioning us well for our next fundraise.”
A spokesperson from a US-based family office investor said: “Crossbay II represented the opportunity to work with a market-leading team and so made sense to partner with them for our maiden commitment to a European logistics real estate fund.
“The performance we have seen so far has been strong, which gives us continued confidence in the strategy.”
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