Hong Kong investor Sung Hung Kai & Co (SHK) has backed an Australian real estate private credit platform established by Wentworth Capital.
SHK, which runs an alternative investment through its funds management subsidiary SHK Capital Partners, has provided “a significant and scalable seed commitment” to the Wentworth Private Credit (WPC) platform, which services Australia and New Zealand.
Seng Huang Lee, group executive chairman of SHK, said: “We are proud to be part of seeding Wentworth’s new fund, supporting their growth while strategically positioning ourselves in the high-potential Australian real estate private credit market. We see this not just as an investment, but as a long-term partnership that generates opportunities across our alternative investment platforms.”
The long-term strategic seed investment will provide certainty and acceleration for funding of initial transactions, in combination with additional capital as WPC’s funds grow.
Alastair Nash, CEO and co-founder of Wentworth said: “Wentworth is excited to launch WPC and bring our real estate expertise to the private credit sector. Wentworth continues to grow across all parts of our businesses.”
Issa Chehab, head of private credit at Wentworth, told IPE Real Assets the fund had already made three loans in the A$20m to A$100m (€11.3m to €56.5m) range for commercial office, a residential and an industrial transactions.
Chehab said: “The overall credit market, especially in real estate, is very competitive, in Australia. We are not competing with the mega funds like the Blackstones and the Apollos of the world. They won’t do smaller tickets. It’s not efficient for them.”
“We aim for the mid-market and we are not focussed on funding residential construction. We’re in this in-between space where there is much less competition and much less service. Our borrowers fall into two categories- established developers who buy and fix up property and traditional fund managers looking at on opportunistic, value-added investments.”
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