Mitsubishi Corporation (MC) has raised £140 mln at first closing for a new UK real estate debt fund, including £50 mln of seed capital from Mitsubishi itself.
Mitsubishi Corporation (MC) has raised £140 mln at first closing for a new UK real estate debt fund, including £50 mln of seed capital from Mitsubishi itself.
The vehicle, which is targeting a total size of £500 mln, will be managed by a joint venture between MC Asset Management Europe and UBS Global Asset Management.
MC and UBS have already collaborated in the past with the creation in 2000 of a joint venture in Japan, MC-UBS Realty Management.
'Jointly we grew the company which now manages the second largest REIT in Japan,' the companies said in a statement.
The new debt fund project is backed by this longstanding successful relationship between the two groups, which are looking to expand the scope of their cooperation into a more global scale, they added.
'Although MC has focused on the domestic real estate market, it is now intending to expand its asset management business to foreign real estate and other real assets,' the Japanese conglomerate said.
The fund is a closed ended debt fund seeking to take advantage of the debt financing gap in commercial real estate in the UK. It will target a wide range of potential borrowers including those needing to refinance their maturing loans and new borrowers seeking to invest in the UK commercial property market.