Pramerica launches UK real income fund

Pramerica Real Estate Investors is to launch the Pramerica UK Real Income Fund, an open-ended, commingled strategy to invest in a portfolio of UK commercial real estate on behalf of institutional investors. Pramerica is the European arm of Prudential Financial's (global real estate investment and advisory business, headquartered in the US.

For its first UK-dedicated strategy, the firm anticipates building a portfolio of properties with low levels of depreciation and volatility across selected property types. The team is looking to provide investors with core stable income-oriented returns that provide the potential to track and exceed the UK Retail Price Index by between 4% and 5%, after fees and expenses. A minimum of 50% of the assets will be leased to companies with low credit risk on long leases with RPI or fixed increases in income. The fund will be marketed primarily to institutional investors in the UK and Pramerica estimates that it could reach a size of £500 mln (EUR 553 mln) over the next five years.

The fund will be managed by Pramerica's newly established UK real estate team, comprising Paul Dennis Jones, Charles Crowe and Andrew Grigson.
The new team joined Pramerica in early September and was part of the core group that managed the UK funds sponsored by UBS Global Asset Management. Pramerica began activities in Europe in 1990, is headquartered in London and has fund management operations in both London and Munich..