Finnish asset manager eQ has raised an initial €33m for its first residential property fund.

The manager said the initial capital raised by the newly launched Special Investment Fund eQ Residential fund will enable it to invest €100m in Finnish residential real estate.

The manager said it expects to raise €100m in total for the fund, which will enable the fund to make over €300m in investments.

The eQ Residential fund will invest in residential real estate in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, in Tampere and in Turku.

Tero Estovirta, head of real estate investments at eQ, said: ”The fund has already agreed to acquire investment targets for over €30m in Helsinki, Vantaa and Tampere.

“Furthermore, we hold advanced negotiations for other interesting targets covering our entire current investment capacity.”

The manager already manages the eQ Care and eQ Finnish Real Estate funds.

Markus Pitkänen, a who is in charge of the fund, said: ”With our care and commercial property funds, we are currently the tenth largest investor in the Finnish real estate markets.

“In residential we will focus more on building and developing than in our two other funds, which combined with higher leverage works best in a closed-end fund structure.”

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