This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
INSTITUTIONAL investors, sovereign wealth and pension funds invested $2.85 billion in Macquarie’s latest fund which will target opportunities in the logistics and land lease community (LLC) living sectors in Australia.
Macquarie Asset Management has raised $US1.9 billion of equity in the final close of Macquarie Real Estate Partners (MREP).
Macquarie Asset Management global head Eric Wurtzebach said MREP attracted a strong contingent of institutions, including pension and sovereign wealth funds in Australia, Canada and the Middle East.
“The series’ strategy leverages Macquarie Asset Management’s track record and experience investing in and partnering with specialist operators and aims to create a diversified portfolio targeting real estate sectors aligned to the key global themes of technology, demographic shifts and sustainability,” headed.
To date, capital from MREP has been deployed across the logistics, living and new economy office sectors.
Investments include logistics warehousing groups, namely Logistics Property Company in the US and Unified Industrial in Asia-Pacific.
It also invested in rental housing, Goodstone Living in the United Kingdom, and in European sustainable office developer, Edge and a partnership with US self-storage specialist, LaTerra Storage.
MREP is also expanding into the land lease living sector in Australia by making an investment in a LLC business in Australia.
The broader series has also invested in an Australian build-to-rent platform, Local Residential, and specialist residential community developer, Winton in New Zealand.
MREP is the second vehicle in Macquarie Asset Management Real Estate’s opportunistic fund series, following the Asia-Pacific opportunistic real estate partnership (MREP Asia 1), which held its final close in 2021 and is now deployed across developed markets in the region.
Wurtzebach said these investments and partnerships with specialist operators aim to enhance MREP’s access to real estate opportunities that the real estate cycle presents over the next 12-18 months.
“We have a long history of investing in specialist operators and we are delighted to secure the close of our second opportunistic vehicle leveraging this strategy. Our existing and new investors have demonstrated strong support for this strategy which both enhances our access to high quality real estate and provides an opportunity to generate alpha,”
Macquarie’s move into the LLC highlights the opportunities in the over 55s LCC sector.
This week Gaw Capital Partners and GreenFort Capital formed a joint venture to acquire and develop an $800 million pipeline of over 55’s land lease community projects.
And last month Stockland and US group Invesco struck a $1.1 billion JV.
Meanwhile Avid Property Group announced its expansion into the sector with a $1.1 billion new business, Vantage.
It comes after Mirvac teamed up with Pacific Equity Partners in a billion-dollar deal.
