Moorfield raises £500m

Moorfield Group has raised a total of £500 million ($758 million; €636 million) in equity to deploy in UK opportunistic and value added investments.

The London-based group, led by former Goldman Sachs professional Marc Gilbard, has closed on £250 million of discretionary capital commitments for Moorfield Real Estate Fund II. It has supplemented this with £100 million-plus of co-investment equity and further joint venture capital, giving it an overall equity firepower of £500 million for deployment in a three-year investment window, it said today.

Investors are split evenly between exiting and new, hailing from the US, Europe and Japan. The fund is said to be targeting returns of around 15 and 20 percent and an equity multiple of between 1.5x and 2x.

Gilbard said in a statement that the firm was “satisfied” with its latest fundraise. Its previous fund raised a total of £390 million in capital commitments.

So far, four investments have been made for Fund III. The latest deal was the acquisition of Aurora, a 52,000 square foot office block in Ealing, West London from Threadneedle Investments for £22 million in an off-market transaction sealed in late December last year. The others are 100 Barbirolli Square in Manchester, Quartermile in Edinburgh, a Private Rented Sector (PRS) scheme at Queens Dock in Liverpool, and the Energy and Innovation Parks in Aberdeen.Those three were bought in 2013. Oaktree Capital Management partnered Moorfield in the acquisition of Barbirolli Square.

Meanwhile dispositions are taking place from Fund I and II. Moorfield said in December it was selling a £1 billion portfolio of assets currently being held in the two funds to Lone Star Real Estate Fund III (LSREF III).