Peakside Capital Advisors said on Wednesday that its PREF IV fund has closed capital raising earlier than planned with close to €415 mln of equity commitments.
The fund was significantly oversubscribed after only eleven months of fundraising. Due to the massive interest by existing as well as new clients, the initial hard cap of €350 mln was raised by almost 20%. The full demand for subscriptions could still not be satisfied.
Compared to its predecessor fund, the equity base of PREF IV has more than doubled. Peakside additionally noted binding commitments of co-investment capital in the double-digit million euro range. The capital mainly stems from institutional investors, sovereign wealth funds and family offices from Europe and the Middle East.
With a target debt ratio of around 60%, PREF IV will invest in real estate worth over €1.2 bn. The focus lies on German properties which are affected by pricing dislocations, ‘stranded’ in sales processes, have additional (re-)financing needs and on assets with value-add or conversion potential. That means the entire spectrum of asset classes is under consideration. Ticket size ranges between €30 mln and €200 mln. One acquisition for the fund has already been signed. Closing of the transaction is planned at the beginning of 2022.
Boris Schran, managing partner of Peakside, said: ‘Thanks to the strong team around Simon Lutz, the deal pipeline is well filled, and the fund already has several assets under exclusivity. We are close to the market and occupiers and thus especially looking at investment opportunities in logistics and residential. But we are also seeing several inroads into retail and hotel opportunities we can recommend to the fund, with a particular interest in assets that can be converted into office or residential use. We are confident that the fund will be closing further transactions within the first half of 2022.’
Stefan Aumann, managing partner at Peakside, added: ‘After its first closing in February last year, PREF IV was fully placed with investors within only eleven months – and that despite the Covid-19 pandemic. The speed with which that happened was indeed faster than we anticipated. Interest was enormous.’
Frank Schäfer, managing director and head of business development at Peakside, commented: ‘Apart from the commitments of almost all our existing clients, we are proud to have attracted a large number of new investors for the fund. This is a testament to the excellent performance of the predecessor funds as well as the market penetration we have reached as Peakside at this stage.’
