An unnamed North American institution has given Australian alternative real estate investment manager Qualitas a A$550m (€344m) mandate to invest in commercial real estate private credit across construction loans, predevelopment land loans and investment loans.
Qualitas will co-invest up to A$25m over the life of the mandate.
The new commitment, the manager’s first from North America, brings Qualitas’ total funds under management (FUM) to A$8.6bn representing an increase of around 42% from 30 June 2023.
IPE Real Assets understands that the investor is a large pension fund and a global investor which has invested in other asset classes in Australia previously. This is, however, its first investment in the Australian real estate private credit market.
Andrew Schwartz, group managing director and co-founder of Qualitas, told IPE Real Assets that “the capital is intended for private credit to be used mostly for senior loans and will be deployed across all asset classes.”
Today, just over 80% of Qualitas’ FUM is invested in private credit and 83% is invested on behalf of institutional investors. At the end of the last financial year, Qualitas made loans totalling A$3bn in that year.
Schwartz said with the latest commitment Qualitas had achieved another record year of capital raising with net A$2.5bn raised since 30 June 2023.
“We believe this new mandate is a testament to our track record and increasing scale of our asset management platform, which enables us to deploy at scale for the right investment opportunities.”
Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), which has committed more than A$1bn to Qualitas, is one of the manager’s largest funds investors. ADIA has options to acquire new ordinary shares in the ASX-listed firm.
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