AXA Investment Managers -Real Assets (AXA IMRA) has raised around €1.4 bn for its latest commercial property real estate senior debt fund, Commercial Real Estate Senior 10.
The latest fund is the tenth generation of AXA IMRA CRE senior funds, bringing its total debt platform to €13 bn. However, the new fund is the first to have an initial mandate to invest in US loans, with an allocation of up to 25% to capitalise on the growing US economy. AXA IMRA has invested in the US real estate debt space since 2014, as part of its wider expansion into the US market.
'The new fund - Commercial Real Estate Senior 10 – has been designed to match our investment capacity within the next 12 to 18 months,' Timothé Rauly, head of CRE finance and core funds at AXA IMRA, told PropertyEU. 'The fund will target senior debt in the office, retail, logistics, light industrial and some alternative asset class sectors, such as healthcare.'
Although AXA IMRA has up to three years to deploy all the capital for its latest fund, the fund manager is hoping to fully invest it within the next 18 to 24 months, Rauly said. The fund’s annual target return is 200 bps over the 3-month Libor rate.
The decision was taken to add the US into the mix to reflect the fact that investors are looking for appropriate risk return investments, Rauly said. 'We've been extremely selective and adding the US was a way to ensure that we would be able to offer strong returns in the long-term to our investors.'
AXA IMRA's fund Commercial Real Estate Senior 10 will primarily target European markets such as Germany, France and the UK, although the fund's remit allows the group to invest anywhere in Europe, including Southern Europe and Scandinavia.
AXA IMRA had over €70 bn in AUM, including €54.1 bn in direct property and infrastructure and €12.7 bn in real asset finance as of end of September 2016.
