Aberdeen closes European fund of funds with €300m of equity

Aberdeen Asset Management has completed the fund raising for its European Secondaries Property Fund of Funds, which reached its hard cap of €300 mln ahead of its final closing date in September of this year.

Following the €151.5 mln of initial commitments, with Nordic pension fund Första AP - fonden (AP1) as lead investor and Aberdeen itself as a co-investor, the strategy has attracted investments from the Korea Scientists & Engineers Mutual-Aid Association (SEMA ) and another unnamed Nordic investor.

The fund is already 38% committed, having made eight investments with exposure to more than 200 properties across Europe.

'The investments have mainly been sourced from institutional owners of units that are seeking to rebalance their portfolios, due to changes in strategy or in the regulated environment,' the asset manager said in a statement.

Aberdeen believes that this trend will continue, creating an opportunity to get value-add returns for stabilised portfolios.

Lars Graneld and Johan Temse are the fund's lead managers.

FOCUS ON QUALITY AHEAD OF PRICE
Aberdeen's property multi-manager team has made over 100 investments in property funds in Europe.
The investment approach is to firstly focus on quality and then on price, the company added.

Investments in property funds are typically put up for sale by institutional investors for a number of reasons including regulatory requirements, such as the introduction of Solvency II and Basel III, performance AND asset allocation.

'The secondaries market is particularly attractive with an increasing number of opportunities with investors becoming more active in the management and composition of their indirect property portfolios,' commented Andrew McCaffery, Global head of Alternatives at Aberdeen.

Aberdeen currently manages €2.5 bn in European property multi-manager mandates, with further assets under management in Asia Pacific and the Americas.