A new US property developer has raised more than $500m (£386m) as part of a plan to break into the UK market.
California-based Creative Science Properties, which supplies office space to biotechnology and healthcare companies, will invest the funds initially in the US before targeting the UK in 2020.
The firm began raising equity over the summer, seeking investment from sovereign wealth funds, institutional investors and family offices. The fund had its final close two weeks ago.
It was co-founded last month by Alan Gold and John Bonanno, who both previously worked for Blackstone’s BioMed Realty, the former having founded the firm originally and the latter acting most recently as executive vice president.
Both Biomed and Creative Science Properties are headquartered in San Diego.
Douglass Cuff, formerly leasing director at BioMed Realty, has joined the firm as UK vice president to spearhead the firm’s UK strategy. Cuff will initially be Boston-based, where Creative Science Properties has just opened an office. The firm also has offices in San Diego and San Francisco.
He said: “We are looking for opportunities on the points of the [life sciences] Golden Triangle in Cambridge, Oxford and London. It is a similar business model to BioMed; we are looking for the same markets and the same tenants. We think there’s room for another player.”
Cuff describes the firm’s current structure as a “private REIT”, with plans to go public and become a traditional REIT in the US in the next three to four years.
The news comes after EG reported this week that BioMed Realty is considering developing a life sciences hub in King’s Cross, N1.
The fellow California-based firm already owns 900,000 sq ft of laboratory and office space in Cambridge at the Babraham Research Campus.
Colleen O’Connor, senior director, east coast and UK markets at BioMed Realty, said: “We are currently the largest life science provider in the UK and having London as a base would be a natural progression; it is just a matter of finding a site. We always love to find opportunities to convert spaces.”
Blackstone bought BioMed Realty in 2016, in a deal valued at $8bn. The 18.9m sq ft portfolio deal encompassed markets including Boston, San Francisco and Seattle in the US, as well as Cambridge in the UK.
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