Boyle, Beanblossom nab first $100m commitment for NW1 Partners

NW1 Partners, the firm co-founded by one-time head of real estate at Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners David Boyle, has received its largest commitment to date from an institutional investor.

The London-based manager secured a $100 million commitment from an unnamed “major” institution this month. PERE understands the investor is a US-based sovereign wealth fund.

Launched in 2017 by Boyle and Brad Beanblossom, a former executive with Sam Zell’s Equity International, NW1 Partners specializes in club deals focused on aggregating properties in niche sectors, executing a value-add strategy and then selling the portfolios to core platforms managed by larger operators. Its most recent vehicle targeted last-mile logistics properties in London.

So far, the firm has raised four of these funds, Boyle tells PERE, each consisting of about $100 million in equity from three to five investors. This is the first commitment NW1 has received that will be deployed across multiple vehicles, he said, adding that he expects the capital to be invested in four or five ventures over the next two years targeting opportunities in the US and Europe.

“It’s a big and important step for our firm,” Boyle said. “It was a huge vote of confidence in what we do and our strategies. We’ve heretofore been raising our vehicles one at a time and we’ve got a nice investor base that we’ve built up, but so far, each investor has committed as we’ve shown them a new club fund. To have a major, well-known investor commit $100 million to us going forward in a more structured way, is really important to us and validating to what we do.”

The first $25 million of the investment has been put toward NW1 Brooklyn Multifamily Fund, which is targeting older apartment buildings in low-density parts of Brooklyn, such as Park Slope. Boyle said the strategy has benefited from the outflow of young professionals and families from Manhattan during the pandemic.