Henderson Park, the London-based private equity real estate firm founded by Nick Weber, has held a first closing for its second value-add and opportunistic pan-Europe real estate fund on €1.25 billion, PERE can reveal.
PERE reported the launch of Henderson Park Real Estate Fund II last June, at which point the firm had already eyed an initial closing of more than €1 billion. It is understood that closing happened earlier this year at the higher amount. It is believed a further €150 million of commitments is expected to be finalized within weeks. Henderson Park declined to comment.
The fundraising round is thought to include new and existing investors. At final closing, the vehicle is expected to attract €2.5 billion. PERE previously reported the vehicle has a hard-cap set at €3 billion.
Should it achieve either, it would eclipse the $2.2 billion raised for Fund I in July 2019. That vehicle was the biggest debut fund raised by a manager for higher-risk-and-return private real estate investment strategies in Europe. It also saw 131 percent more equity raised than its initial target of $950 million.
Since the firm’s launch in 2017, Henderson Park has won fans among the institutional investor community for its access to deals and speed of deployment. For Fund I, Weber previously told PERE how the firm was 56 percent invested six months before the end of its fundraising period. That encouraged first close investors to re-up within the same fund.
The firm has, similarly, been on prolific form for Fund II. PERE understands approximately €600 million has been either invested or committed to deals for the vehicle, including 12 Hilton hotels, comprising 2,400 rooms across the UK and Ireland in a deal valued at £555 million ($727 million; €660 million), according to a report by the Financial Times. Another outlay was the €300 million purchase of Mosse-Zentrum, an office asset in central Berlin.
While there had previously been concerns relating to Henderson Park’s track record exiting from investments, it has been able to allay these with as much as €500 million of dispositions, per PERE’s prior coverage, including some high-profile recent sales like Athene Place, a 147,000-square-foot office property in the City of London, which was sold for £255 million to Wing Tai Properties, a Hong Kong-based real estate business. That deal reportedly crystalized a gross 38 percent IRR and 2.3x equity multiple. Exits in other sectors, including student housing, have also occurred.
Fund I, which is now entirely committed, was deployed across Europe, including in the UK, France, Germany, Poland and Greece, and across property sectors.
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