US private equity firm KKR has announced it has raised $739 mln (€655 mln) at the final closing of its first European fund, KKR Real Estate Partners Europe.
The vehicle focuses on opportunistic investments in real estate and real estate-related transactions primarily in Western Europe. The fund received support from a diverse group of global investors, including public pension plans, insurance companies, endowments, private banking platforms, family offices and individual investors.
'We believe that Europe provides an attractive real estate investment environment,' said Ralph Rosenberg, global head of KKR Real Estate. 'This, coupled with KKR's 40 years of global investment experience, 20 years of European experience and our powerful global sourcing network, leads us to believe we can be a differentiated partner of choice in today’s European real estate market.'
The fund's primary investing activity will be ownership of real property or entities where the primary value resides in real property, and may make investments in both equity and debt securities, KKR said. 'The fund will make investments with the intent of controlling or influencing the real estate assets or companies in which it invests or, in the case of debt investments, controlling the debt class or influencing the resolution of a real estate restructuring,' the company added.
Since 2013, KKR has completed European real estate transactions with a combined enterprise value of over $1.3 bn. Investments to date include a mix of properties – residential, retail, hotel, and mixed use – throughout the UK, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Ireland, Spain and France.
Guillaume Cassou, member and head of European Real Estate at KKR, said: 'We continue to build our real estate platform in Europe and the final close of REPE is a key milestone in this effort. We believe that we are well positioned to build a diverse portfolio of investments capable of yielding attractive risk-adjusted returns, as evidenced by the portfolio of six investments that we have seeded the Fund with across a variety of sectors and countries.'
Since launching a dedicated real estate platform in 2011, KKR has committed over $2.7 bn in equity and debt across 70 real estate transactions in the US, Europe and Asia as of 31 March 2016. The global real estate team consists of over 40 dedicated investment professionals.
