Venn Partners has raised £185m from institutional investors for a second close on its discretionary debt fund.
The commitments to the Venn Commercial Real Estate Fund I come from UK and North American pension funds as the fund aims towards a final close in the third quarter of 2016.
The fund will target value-add loans in the range of £5m-£50m, where the business has identified strong demand and the opportunity for attractive risk-adjusted returns is one of the strongest.
The loans will have a cap of 75% loan-to-value and terms from six months to five years.
Primarily focused on the UK, the loans will also be available for deals in selected Western European markets.
To date the fund has deployed £140m across a variety of loans.
Under Paul House, former head of Citigroup’s real estate EMEA business, Venn has lent £1.2bn across 27 loans since 2013.
House will manage the fund alongside deputy portfolio manager Beatrice Dupont, who said: “As a consequence of the continued evolution within the bank lending market, set against our borrowers’ needs to work with solution-orientated debt providers, we continue to source and underwrite attractive investment opportunities with strong downside protection for our investors.”
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