Resolution Property sets sights on €800m pan European fund

Resolution Property, the London-based private equity real estate firm led by Robert Laurence, is poised to imminently start fundraising for its fourth pan European opportunistic fund, with a target of around €800 million, PERE has learned.

The company, which has around €1.6 billion of assets under management and is nearing the end of investing its current fund, Resolution Real Estate Fund III, has appointed boutique New York-headquartered advisory firm, Hodes Weill & Associates as placement agent. The company is expected to emulate its previous fund, which closed on €808 million in December 2007.

The news follows recent reports that Resolution has €250 million of firepower left in its fund III, and intends to focus on smaller, all-cash deals given the macro environment.

On the continent, the company is targeting France, Germany, Poland and the Nordic countries, mainly in the retail and residential sectors. Meanwhile in the UK, it is seeking a range of value-add deals including office assets in London; retail properties with room for rental growth and mixed-use properties with asset management potential in locations popular with technology, media and telecommunications companies in and around London.

Robert Wolstenholme, director of Resolution, said in a statement to the property press two weeks ago: “We continue our active search for asset management opportunities, which in the last 12 months has led to the exchange of contracts on €300 million of property across the UK and Continental Europe.”

Resolution was founded in 1998 by Laurence and an investment team from UK property company Argent Group and is primarily backed by US limited partners such as Hewlett Packard and Stanford Management Company. MN Services is thought to be among the European LPs. 

Its second fund closed in 2004 on £330 million (€492 million; $600 million based on that year’s currency exchange rates), but it nearly doubled the size for its follow-up effort in 2007.

Its advisor on the next fund, Hodes Weill, is based in New York and was started in 2009 by co-founders of Credit Suisse Real Estate Private Fund Group professionals, David Hodes and Doug Weill. In December 2011, the company expanded its global coverage by opening offices in London and Hong Kong.

Resolution and Hodes Weill declined to comment.