Henderson’s €414m FoF makes two investments in UK funds

  Henderson Global Investors has made two secondaries investments on behalf of its €400 million-plus European fund of funds vehicle.

The London-based firm has acquired €11.7 million of units from undisclosed parties in the Standard Life Core UK Shopping Centre Trust and €11.8 million of units in the Unite UK Student Accommodation Fund for its Henderson Indirect Property Fund Europe (HIP).

This is the first UK investment the fund of funds has made, it said, adding that these fresh investments would increase its diversification within Europe, enhance its liquidity because the Unite fund was open-ended, and would also lower its risk profile.

Henderson’s fund of funds is also open ended, enabling the firm to maximise returns by being “opportunity driven,” the fund’s manager, Nick Evans said.

Evans added: “These latest investments represent our current views on the UK market for which we are forecasting solid index-linked income returns in the student accommodation sector and defensive income streams via prime, dominant shopping centres.”

Besides Henderson, Standard Life’s core fund has attracted other blue chip investors in recent times. In June 2010 Standard Life announced PGGM, the Dutch pension fund and asset manager, had invested around €75 million. At that point, the 2005 vintage fund had around €1.3 billion of assets.

The UK Student Accommodation Fund is managed by student block developer Unite, and is of a similar size with around £1.2 billion (€1.3 billion; $1.9 billion) of assets.

HIP is one of the largest fund of funds in the market, with around €419 million of equity. It has an eventual target size of €1 billion.

Henderson’s property team comprises over 200 staff based in offices across Europe, Asia and the US. It also has additional asset management capabilities through a joint venture in Hamburg.