Crow returns to fundraising trail

The Dallas-based firm closed its last value-added fund in January on $1.9bn.

Crow Holdings Capital Partners is back in the market with its eighth value-add fund, Crow Holdings Realty Partners VIII, according to investors’ meeting minutes from November and December.

The Dallas-based private equity real estate firm closed the predecessor vehicle, Crow Holdings Realty Partners VII, in January with 90 commitments totaling $1.85 billion, PERE previously reported. A spokesman for Crow declined to comment on the latest fundraise.

Crow’s first seven funds focus on assets across property types in North America including industrial, retail, office, multi-family, convenience stores and gas stations, hotel and self-storage. They had a combined net internal rate of return of 24 percent as of September 2015, according to meeting minutes from the Connecticut system of pension funds, which invested in the seventh fund. The Crow family has invested in over 15 percent of the series’ committed capital.

Investors in Crow Holdings Realty Partners VIII include the Louisiana Teachers’ Retirement System, which allocated $75 million, and the Vermont Pension Investment Committee, which earmarked $30 million, according to December meeting minutes from each pension.

In October, Crow Holdings Capital Partners’ parent company, Crow Holdings, announced that Michael Levy, a longtime executive at New York-based investment bank Morgan Stanley, would join the firm as president and chief executive starting in November. Harlan Crow, Crow Holding’s chief executive and chairman, said in the statement that Levy’s appointment was “a key milestone” in the firm’s succession planning. The firm’s other subsidiaries are Trammell Crow Residential and Industrial, operating businesses that have over $4 billion of property under development, according to firm’s website.

Crow Holdings Capital Partners manages over $10 billion in real estate for institutional investors, according to its website.