Doughty Hanson’s European Real Estate Fund II has had its first closing with €166.5m of equity – a third of the overall €500m equity target – after four months of fund raising.
John Howard, head of Doughty Hanson European Real Estate, said: “We did not start out in July to rush to a quick closing but there are deals we wanted to complete, so we chose with our investors to have a quick first closing so we would have the capital in position to allow us to close those deals. If all goes to plan we will complete the deals by the end of the year.”
The fund manager, which has already targeted investment opportunities in the UK, Italy, Germany, the Nordics and central and eastern Europe, will also target investments in France.
Lahlou Chélifi has been appointed from AXA REIM to develop the fund’s activities in France.
Howard said: “We’re not seeking to drastically change the business plan that was in place before, but we have now broadened our strategy to include France. We just want to grow the business in that direction. We targeted mid-Europe in the first fund, and that was a suitable position at the time, but now we feel compelled to be more pan-European.”
The opportunity fund manager said it had disposed of eight of the 21 investments in its first European fund and achieved an internal rate of return of 50%. Howard said the company was confident of achieving the same rate of return for the second fund.
