La Française Forum Real Estate Partners (LFF Real Estate Partners), the European direct real estate arm of the La Française – Forum platform, and specialist retail asset manager, Realm, have today announced that they have agreed terms to launch a new UK Shopping Centre Fund.
The Fund is targeted to reach £400 to £500m of assets over a 3-year investment period and will target core-plus assets with a lot size of £35 to £100m. The Fund aims to capitalise on the changing face of retailing by applying proven specialist retail knowledge and skills to create value.
This will be LFF Real Estate Partners’ second retail fund. The firm currently co-manages the Pan European Retail Fund (“PURetail”), a joint venture with Aberdeen Asset Management in continental Europe, with total equity commitments of €160m from five institutional investors. PURetail invests in urban (high street) retail and has assets across its three target markets of Germany, France and Sweden.
Realm currently manages over 2.5m sq ft of retail and leisure assets in the UK for mainly institutional investors. It provides a complete property and asset management service, including dedicated in-house leasing and marketing, tailored to the needs of retailers.
David Rendall, Chief Executive, LFF Real Estate Partners, said, “We are delighted to have teamed-up with Realm to develop a product at what we believe is an exciting time in the retail sector. Shopping centres require specialist management and our product is designed to provide investors with exposure to a segment of the market on which it is difficult to capitalize without these skills.”
Colin Brooks, Managing Director, Realm, said, “LFF Real Estate Partners’ skill and experience as a fiduciary manager together with Realm’s progressive approach to retail asset management gives this team a unique and complementary set of skills which we are confident will deliver outperformance for investors. We are very excited to be working with LFF Real Estate Partners on this fund and expect it to be the first of a number of similar ventures.”
For more information:
La Française:
Pascale Cheynet – 0033 1 43 12 64 25 – pcheynet@lafrancaise-group.com
Heidi Rauen – 0049 69 33 99 78 13 – hrauen@klimek-advisors.com
Realm:
Andrew Duncan – 0044 1625 581591 – aduncan@realm.ltd.uk
About La Française Forum Real Estate Partners (LFF Real Estate Partners):
La Française Forum Real Estate Partners (LFF Real Estate Partners) was established in January 2014 through the joint venture acquisition of Cushman and Wakefield Investors (CWI) by La Française and Forum Partners. The firm combines the 30 years’ real estate investment management experience of the CWI principals with the broad capabilities, resources and expertise of its shareholders.
With offices in London, Frankfurt and Paris, LFF Real Estate Partners specializes in direct commercial real estate investing across Europe and provides institutional and retail investors bespoke segregated products as well as a co-mingled investment vehicle, PURetail. Together with La Française and Forum Partners, LFF Real Estate Partners offers a complete range of Pan European real estate investment solutions (direct real estate, listed and unlisted real estate investment funds, private and public equity and debt) to retail and institutional investors worldwide. The combined platform has total assets under management amounting to close to $20 billion, of which $14 billion are direct core European real estate investments.
About Realm:
Realm was established in 2002 as an all-encompassing ‘one stop shop’ property and asset management business specialising across retail and leisure property sectors. Realm’s holistic approach to the centres it manages drives performance and returns for occupiers and owners. The approach to asset management initiatives are research, customer, data and occupier led and produce attractive and vibrant environments for customers to relax and enjoy their shopping experience.
Realm’s in house expertise consists of dedicated leasing and asset management teams supported by customer focussed marketing personnel, experienced development management resources and a finance team. The company has developed bespoke expertise in capturing sales data and modelling and evaluating assets with turnover based leases.
Realm currently operates the largest portfolio of outlet centres in the UK and is now porting its pro-active methodology into the wider UK shopping centre market.
Disclaimer
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