The head of CBRE’s national industrial team, Richard Moffitt, has teamed up with property grandee Sir John Beckwith to launch a logistics vehicle.
Moffitt has left CBRE after six years and started raising capital for the new venture.
Beckwith, who made his name in property by co-founding London & Edinburgh Trust in 1971, will seed the vehicle with £5m of capital.
A further £50m is being sought from investors.
With gearing the fund will have a total firepower of £100m. It will focus on secondary sheds priced at between £5m and £20m that offer asset management opportunities.
The ultimate intention is to use the assets as a seed portfolio for a listed vehicle.
Moffitt joined CBRE in 2010 via its acquisition of M3, the niche agency he founded jointly with Simon Milner.
Beckwith now runs his property ventures through Pacific Investments, the private company he founded in 1993.
In his career he has developed more than 65m sq ft as well as financing fund management businesses that currently have in excess of $20bn (£13.8bn) of assets under management.
His track record includes work in a range of sectors, but the backing of a new logistics vehicle is indicative of the growing interest in the sector by heavyweight investors.
The migration of physical retail sales online has led to a boom in demand for logistics space from retailers.
According to Savills, take-up of UK warehouse space hit 24m sq ft last year, 9.5% above the long-term average of 22m sq ft. Yields have come in by 120bps in two years and are now at 4.5%, compared with 5.7% in 2013.
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