The real estate arm of Swedish private equity group EQT has exceeded a €750m fundraising target for its second real estate fund by 33%.
The manager said the EQT Real Estate II fund received the capital commitments from both existing and new investors and has held its final close at its hard cap of €1bn, an amount which also exceeds the €420m raised in June 2017 for the first real estate fund.
EQT Real Estate II was backed by a diversified group of investors across Europe, the Nordics, Asia, North America and the Middle East, including public and corporate pension funds, insurance companies and sovereign wealth funds, the manager said.
As previously reported, Maine Public Employees Retirement System and the Teacher Retirement System of Texas committed to the EQT Real Estate II, a fund which seeks to make direct and indirect controlling investments in real estate assets, portfolios, operating companies and joint ventures.
The manager said the fund, which targets equity investments ranging in size from €40m up to €200m, has so far committed capital into four investment programs in Sweden, France and the UK, all with a social impact strategy.
The investments include acquiring a controlling stake in Stendörren Fastigheter, a listed firm which owns a portfolio of 733,000sqm of logistics/urban warehouse real estate across 124 assets in and around Stockholm; Svenska Verksamhetsfastigheter, a portfolio of 28 urban logistics properties located in university cities around Sweden; Nest, a residential solutions platform in France; and investment in Saturn, a London residential joint venture.
EQT said the team is also in talks to invest in Germany, Spain, Italy and Benelux.
Robert Rackind, partner and head of EQT Real Estate, said: “As we are entering a new investment cycle, we see a strong pipeline of attractive value-add investment opportunities that fit EQT Real Estate’s thematic approach to investing primarily into Europe’s key cities and in particular in our current focus on ‘beds’ and ‘sheds’ assets that are benefitting from positive growth drivers and secular trends.”
Lennart Blecher, deputy managing partner and head of EQT Real Assets, said: “The high demand that EQT Real Estate II received from a truly global blue-chip investor base is a testament to the compelling combination of EQT’s platform and our Real Estate Advisory Team’s proven real estate expertise.
“EQT’s ability to cross-pollinate market knowledge, draw on expertise in key areas like sustainability and share networks across our platform is an excellent complement to EQT Real Estate’s in-house talent.”
Christian Sinding, CEO and managing partner at EQT, said: “Real estate is one of the most exciting growth areas for EQT and the success of this fundraise is a reflection of EQT Real Estate’s ability to source attractive opportunities and then develop sustainable, future-proofed assets, while delivering strong results to its investors. We look forward to continuing to build on that success.”
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