Rockspring passes record with €428.5m haul – Exclusive

The pan-European property fund manager passes its original €400m target for its core plus/value add fund TransEuropean (TEP) VI and is predicting the total fundraise to be a company record for the region. 

Rockspring Property Investment Managers has held a fourth close on its sixth European vehicle, exceeding its original fundraising target of €400 million.

In September, Rockspring held a €217.5 million first close and by April it had corralled €327.5 million from seven international institutional investors.

Fundraising will continue until early July when the London-based firm is expected to hold a final close on TEP VI, which has a €500 million hard cap. So far it has attracted nine investors from the UK, Europe, the US and Asia and Rockspring predicts it will be the largest fundraise of the TransEuropean series to date.

Rockspring has deployed €226 million of TEP VI since its launch in October 2014, across five assets in the UK, France, Portugal and Switzerland with a further €177 million committed. The most recent purchase was a portfolio of French logistics properties acquired for €101 million in April.

Paul Hampton, partner and TransEuropean fund director at Rockspring, said: “The high level of equity commitments into TEP VI to date is testament to our fundraising capabilities, and ability to source value in competitive markets and the successful performance of our previous TransEuropean funds.”

“As we look towards bringing the equity raising programme to a close, we continue to see a strong investment pipeline of value-add opportunities in the market,” he added.

TEP V, the firm’s previous fund, closed in 2012 with over €350 million of commitments from 12 investors. Its portfolio has since delivered a 23 percent annual return.

The TransEuropean series of funds were first launched in 1992 and have invested €1.7 billion in 14 European countries since inception, achieving a 13.2 percent annual IRR.

In March, the firm announced it had fully invested its UK core-plus offering, UK Value 2. The £342 million fund closed in February. It took Rockspring eight months to reach the final close, a record for the firm.

As of December 2015, Rockspring had assets under management of €8.2 billion.