Peakside Capital, launched by the principals of the former Merrill Lynch real estate investment team, is setting its sights on UK and France after a long period of absence from these markets due to pricing concerns.

Peakside Capital, launched by the principals of the former Merrill Lynch real estate investment team, is setting its sights on UK and France after a long period of absence from these markets due to pricing concerns.

Principals Roger Barris, Stefan Aumann, Boris Schran and Mark Fenchelle announced in September that they had reached agreement with Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofAML) on acquiring the bank's 100% indirect interest in the general partner of the Merrill Lynch European Real Estate Opportunity Fund.

Rebranded as Peakside Real Estate Fund 1, the fund is 50-60% invested and has about EUR 261 mln in capital commitments. The current assets are all in Germany, with residential dominating. 'We still have additional investment capacity and the investment period doesn’t close until end-2011, so this is the fund we will use for investment over the next few months,' Peakside chairman Barris told PropertyEU.

The full article appears in the October edition of PropertyEU magazine. Click on the link below to subscribe.