Harbert JV to develop retail warehouse in Malaga

Alabama-based alternative asset manager Harbert Management Corporation (HMC) has announced that its European Real Estate Fund II has entered into a joint venture with Doric Malaga to develop a 17,000m² retail warehouse in the Spanish city of Malaga. airport. The project, which is scheduled to open in late 2009, is located adjacent to a recently opened IKEA, and is also next to the pre-let 20,000m² shopping mall extension to the established Plaza Major retail and leisure centre.

Scott O'Donnell, senior managing director of HMC (Europe), said 'the site is ideally suited for retail warehousing which is in very limited supply in the area. We are very pleased to be undertaking this investment with such an experienced partner and hope that this will lead to further investments in this sector'.

HMC entered the European real estate market in 1998 when it managed an affiliate's participation in one of the first large real estate privatisation transactions in Sweden. Since then HMC or its affiliates have carried out transactions in Sweden, France, the UK, Spain, Poland, Ireland and Germany. The company said its European real estate investment team looks for opportunities that fall 'below the radar screen' of larger funds. The typical investments range between $10-150 mln.

Harbert European Real Estate Fund II is in the process of investing its second pan-European real estate fund and has offices in London, Madrid, and Paris. HMC is an alternative investment management company with approximately $25 bn of assets under management across eleven investment strategies and nineteen investment funds.