Aberdeen enjoys fundraising success for Swedish homes

Aberdeen Asset Management, the London-listed asset management company with more than £182.7 billion (€230.9 billion; $289 billion) of assets under management, has had an early success in its efforts to raise institutional capital for Swedish residential investments.

The firm announced yesterday it had corralled €115 million for the first closing of its Aberdeen Residential Sweden Fund, a vehicle it said had a conservative investment strategy focused principally in high-end rental housing in what it termed as growth areas.

Goran Bengtsson, Aberdeen’s head of investment management property in Sweden, said the sector was experiencing strong investor interest “and we feel we have managed to fill a gap in the market with this new product.”

He said the fund was suitable for mid-sized institutional investors.

Bengtsson said: “It is very gratifying that the first closing was so successful, giving us a good opportunity to finalise interesting transactions in the coming months.”

The news of the closings comes just over a year since PERE revealed that Aberdeen would select Sweden as the first country of a series of residential investment funds in the Nordics.

Speaking at a roundtable event, hosted by PERE, Tonny Nielson, head of investment management for the Nordics and Eastern Europe at the firm, revealed the Swedish fund already had soft circled.

He said the strategy behind launching the funds was in part a response to a realization by investors during the early part of the global financial crisis that they were over-allocated to other asset classes such as offices.

He said then: “Most are beginning to think they should have some kind of allocation to residential, so we are setting up residential funds now.”

Aberdeen’s overall property portfolio in Sweden is currently valued at €3.6 billion, the firm said in its announcement.