Pamfleet holds $155m first closing

The Hong Kong and Singapore-focused private equity real estate firm has raised the capital from five institutional investors.

Hong Kong and Singapore-focused private equity real estate firm Pamfleet Group has raised the first round of equity of its second value-add property fund, PERE has learned.

According to sources familiar with the firm, Pamfleet has brought aboard $155 million from five limited partners for its Pamfleet Real Estate Fund (PREF) II, which it launched at the end of last year. Three of the investors are understood to be existing LPs of the firm while two of them are new.

Pamfleet is aiming to raise $350 million in total, with a hard cap set at $400 million. A second closing is anticipated to happen in August and a final closing is slated for the end of the year. The firm is being assisted in its capital raising by CrossCon Real Assets Capital, the California-based placement advisory business.

Pamfleet’s backing from institutions has come following a strong performance from its first PREF fund, which closed in February 2012 on $209 million. Following a value-added strategy that places buying secondary assets and repositioning them at its heart, Pamfleet made six investments in Hong Kong and one investment in Singapore and for PREF and can currently point to an IRR of 23 percent, a return more expected from higher-risk, opportunistic funds.

As a result, Pamfleet has been able to keep its terms for this next fund consistent, charging investors 0.9 percent on committed equity and 1.9 percent on invested equity. Carried interest can be earned by the GP after a 10 percent return hurdle has been reached. Coinvestment capital is expected to be accepted in addition by Pamfleet for selected deals and on a pro rata to committed capital basis.

The firm came to the fundraising arena relatively late in its evolution having spend the best part of a decade transacting on a deal by deal basis. It was formed in 2000 as a management buy-out of Hong Kong investment bank Jardine Fleming’s direct property fund management business and found early business as the operating and investment partner for other property funds. Indeed, it is understood to have racked up $1 billion of investments in its target markets of Hong Kong and Singapore before determining to go it alone and raise its own fund.