GLOBAL - Partners Group will help Korea Investment Corporation (KIC) invest in recapitalising opportunities in the real estate markets as part of the sovereign wealth fund's drive to double its exposure to alternative investments.

The investment manager, which specialises in investing in a broad range of non-listed real estate opportunities - from funds to direct deals - was awarded the mandate several months after KIC revealed it was increasing its weighting to alternatives from 5% to 10%.

KIC is keen to take advantage of situations where real estate investors and fund managers require extra capital or refinancing solutions.

Dong-Ik Lee, managing director of the private markets group, who joined KIC in 2008 to lead its foray into alternatives, said: "We are very excited about the outlook for profitable investments in the private real estate restructuring and recapitalisation space.

"Partners Group's team possesses the right mix of experience and expertise to ensure KIC is ideally positioned to benefit from this significant investment potential."

Nori Gerardo Lietz, partner and chief strategist for private real estate at Partners Group, said: "KIC stands to profit from providing financing to property investors in need of repairing the balance sheets of their investments.

"According to our relative value assessment, recapitalisation currently constitutes one of the most attractive opportunities in private real estate, particularly in developed markets, and we expect these opportunities to remain available for a period of time going forward."

Partners Group invests in a range of real estate investments, depending on cyclical opportunities, as well as managing its own pooled funds.

The Switzerland-based investment manager is currently positive on emerging market real estate funds, recapitalisation opportunities in mature western markets and buying 'secondaries' in existing funds.

Partners Group recently won a global property multi-manager mandate from the Strathclyde Pension Fund in the UK.