Fairway Capital has raised £22m in the third closing of its prime central London residential fund.
The additional funds have been sourced from institutions, family offices and high-net-worth individuals. The fund’s investment adviser said this includes a number of individuals introduced by Coutts & Co through its investment club.
With some leveraging, the Fairway Capital Property Fund aims to deploy £50m on new value-add acquisitions. Since its launch, the fund has bought 10 properties in Belgravia and Knightsbridge with a combined value of £70m.
Cornerstone investor Catalyst Capital has additionally topped up its initial investment with an undisclosed sum, having previously increased its commitment to £20m equity last year.
Hans Prottey, head of Coutts Investment Club, said many of its clients saw the fund as “an attractive alternative and more diversified proposition to building their own prime central London portfolio”.
Fairway highlighted a “lengthened” window of opportunity to “capitalise on the suppressed” prime central London market, which has been experiencing low transaction volumes and discounted prices during the third national coronavirus lockdown.
It pointed to widespread predictions of a return to long-term price growth, on the back of market fundamentals and global “desirability”.
George Brooksbank, founder and chief executive of Fairway Capital, said: “The market has continued to show its resilience amid further government restrictions, particularly in the £5m to £10m price bracket, where transactions in 2020 were at their highest level since 2016.
“When travel restrictions ease, we can expect overseas buyers to return to the market as their spending power has been restored by a rebound in stock and commodity prices.”
James Goldie, chairman of Fairway Capital, said: “2020 will be remembered as a harrowing year, with seemingly daily negative news regarding Covid and its sad impact. Notwithstanding this, the fourth quarter of 2020 yielded better news around exogenous shocks that had been buffeting UK confidence.
“Covid vaccine breakthroughs and an early 2021 roll-out, a Brexit resolution in the last days of December, the US election result ushering in a more cohesive, calm style of government as well as global stock markets continuing to rally, buoyed by world governments trying to heal the economic hardships of Covid.”
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