The South Korean arm of APAC real assets manager ESR has set up an open-ended core logistics fund.
ESR Kendall Square (ESRKS) has seeded the perpetual fund with seven “trophy assets” located in the Greater Seoul and Greater Busan areas.
The assets, which are developed and managed by ESRKS have a total gross floor area of 1m sqm, with an average occupancy of over 99%.
ESR said the open-ended fund will acquire “high-quality income-producing stabilised assets” from not only third-party entities but also the extensive pipeline of development assets managed by ESRKS.
The launch of the open-ended logistics vehicle expands ESR’s reach to development, core-plus, and two perpetual core funds with the ESR Kendall Square REIT and the new core fund.
Jeffrey Shen and Stuart Gibson, ESR group co-founders and co-CEOs, said: “ESR is delighted to lead the way with the debut of our flagship open-ended logistics core fund in Korea. This further reinforces our strong commitment to capital recycling and the desire to retain and manage our best-in-class assets and strategic tenant relationships over the long term.
”We thank our existing and new core fund investors, which include large global institutional investors, for their support.”
Josh Daitch, ESR CIO, said: “The establishment of the Korea Core Fund now adds to ESR’s full range of investment products across the risk spectrum. This strategy matches product to investors’ risk tolerance and enables them to better access the compelling fundamentals of New Economy real estate in Asia.
”From a group perspective, we now have dedicated and sizable core vehicles in Australia, China (both RMB and US$), Japan, Korea and Singapore with our inaugural ESR China REIT in process.”
Thomas Nam, CEO, ESR Korea, said: “We are proud to announce another milestone in successfully establishing Korea’s first open-ended logistics core fund that will be managed perpetually. We expect modern logistics facilities, such as those in our core fund portfolio, to be increasingly sought after as they provide operational efficiencies for tenants.
”With this milestone, we believe that the seven trophy assets will lay the foundations for a core vehicle that will deliver long-term sustainable growth for our investors.”
To read the latest IPE Real Assets magazine click here.
