NORTH AMERICA - Pramerica Real Estate Investors (PREI) has concluded a capital raise on the Prudential US Real Estate Debt Fund with $805m (€613m) in capital commitments.
The investors include a mixture of pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and other prominent global investors in Asia, the Middle East and the US.
One of the contributors, the Employees Retirement System of Texas, set aside $125m for the fund.
Jack Taylor, managing director and head of PREI's global real estate finance group, said:
"There is going to be $1.8trn in mortgage loans coming due over the next several years.
"There is now not enough debt capital in the marketplace to satisfy this demand. We hope to be part of the funding gap."
Most of the transactions for the Debt Fund will be with "income-producing, institutional-quality" assets.
PREI will not be investing in any ground-up development projects or land purchases.
The favoured property types will be office, industrial, retail, apartments and some activity with hotels and self-storage assets.
PREI will consider some deals for the fund where the manager will take either leasing or value-added risk, although this would represent only a very small portion of the fund.
PREI has full investment discretion on deals worth $65m or less.
Deals larger than that will be funded partially with co-investment capital from the other investors in the fund.
From a geographical perspective, the Debt Fund will be focusing on the top 25 metropolitan areas in the US.
Most of the transactions will be worth $10m-65m.
In some deals, PREI will work with borrowers that are looking to refinance, recapitalise and acquire properties.
Other transactions will include secondary market purchases of performing, sub-performing and non-performing loans.
