Orion Capital Managers are targeting €1.3 billion for the fourth opportunity fund vehicle in private equity commitments.

The European investment real estate firm are aiming to equal the total equity commitments raised from the Orion European Real Estate Fund III. This fund vehicle is believed to be targeting comparable capital haul to the former vehicle, Orion European Real Estate Fund III, which gained €1.28 billion equity in 2009.

Usually, private firms like Orion choose not to comment on investments. However, links have been made to a deal to buy a loan worth €600 million from Irelands National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) and has been connected with Cyril Dennis, a British developer.

Orion has recently bought a property in London which it intends to convert into a £150 million 30-storey luxury building.

Source: PERE 21/03/2012

The French global insurance group, AXA Real Estate Investment Managers, have announced their rare launch for their real estate Italian fund – The Caesar Funds.

The Caesar fund is fundamentally aimed for Italian institutional investors to invest capital into the first French and UK office markets. AXA have declared that they’ve already raised €118 million in equity, but are eventually expected to attract €200 million. They have announced their arrangements for the second and final closing already.

The first closing for this rare fund was raised from a range of Italian institutional investors, this includes: insurance companies, pension funds and social security entities.

Presuming, a loan-to-value ratio of fifty percent, the Caesar Fund could grow €400 million in nine years. The Italian investors are expected to receive an average annual dividend of 5.5% and an IRR of 9%.

Source: PERE 07/03/2012

Virtus Real Estate Capital has announced the launch of a $500 million fund. This will be primarily targeting the student housing, self-storage, medical offices and senior living projects and will cover the US.

The private real estate firm based in Austin- Texas, have started targeting the areas which they believe are resilient to the recession. Virtus are looking to raise $500 million in equity commitments with a restraint of up to $700 million, making it the biggest fund for the firm till date. They are pursuing both opportunistic and value-added strategies for this project, with target net returns of over 15%.

Virtus first focused on student housing last year, with its successful launch of Virtus Student Housing in spring 2011. This fund is still open is seeking $100 million up to $150 million in equity commitments from investors. This fund is expected to close in June / July 2012. As it previously had experience in the other markets, Virtus decided to launch a multi-property type strategy to get the most out of the market and their expertise.

The previous fund launched in August called Virtus Storage Investment IV sealed $46 million in equity commitments.

Source: PERE 07/02/2012

However much career security you may currently have, it is still beneficial to receive head-hunter’s calls and listen to the opportunities available for you. In future, you may find yourself in a situation where you need help from a corporate head-hunter to assist you in moving your career forward.

Listening to what your head-hunter has to offer is crucial otherwise you may miss out on a life changing opportunity. Irrespective of how secure you may think your career is, according to the fulfilment index, the frequencies of management transitions are ever more increasing. Therefore it favourable on side to take the call and see where the call may lead you and also listen to the head-hunters advice as it might even surprise you!

Generally, head-hunters will only provide you with their name and the firm they are calling from. Therefore it may be useful to give them a few minutes to let them explain the purpose for calling, as it may not be initially apparent.

One the purpose of the call becomes clear, try to identify whether you are a potential candidate search; if so, be completely honest about yourself and your current job and you compensation package. Don’t be shy to tell them what you current package is and what you think is attractive enough to change jobs. If you want to or are keen to relocate, then make this clear. Similarly, if your personal circumstances do not allow you to relocate, be open about that too.

Don’t be put off if head-hunters are unable to reveal the company they are hiring on behalf of. Many of their clients simply do not give permission to identify them as the hiring company until much later in the search process and then only a handful of ‘shortlisted’ candidates will be told.

Overall, if you have the right profile head-hunters are looking for, you can rest assured that they will take you seriously and be committed to you.

Source: Bloomberg 24/01/2012

The San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System (SFERS) have announced their new Head of real estate, Lindsey Adam.

The $15 billion pension fund based in America has promoted Lindsey Adams from a security analyst to the position of a Senior Portfolio Manager of Real Estate. Adam has been with the company for over three years. Previously, she was working at AMB Property as a vice president and portfolio manager.

According to officials, this role has been available since December 2009, when Donald Holcher, the previous head of real estate was promoted to the position of a head of head of private markets. Following this, Holcher retired by the end of 2010.

The promotion of Adams has initiated SFERS retirement board to be restructured and reorganised allowing for enhanced management of the alternatives program and the increasing number of manager relationships.

SFERS have invested $1.4 billion into real estate which is approximately 10 percent of their total assets. One of Admas task is to grow the plan’s commitment to real estate.

Source: PERE 19/01/2011

The global insurance group firm, Axa has announced that it was raised €588.5 million for its European Development Venture III (DVIII).

The French firm raised the equity commitments largely from pensions funds and insurance firms. The fund is formed from; pensions (54 percent), insurance companies (24 percent), sovereign wealth funds (14 percent) and funds of funds (8 percent). This European fund will offer opportunistic-like returns to investors. The fund is aimed towards investing green and brownfield sites and properties requiring extensive redevelopment. Three prime office development projects and one in London are included in the DVIII.

The senior fund manager of DVIII, Denis Morel claims to have a number of exciting and top profile projects on board including Coface headquarters in Paris and some in London.

Around two thirds of the new commitments aroused from former Axa investors of development funds, the highest being €405 million. The previous development funds from Axa have generated a gross annual internal rate of return of over 40 percent.

Source: PERE 10/01/2012

The private investment firm based in America, has announced their target of $2 to $3 billion for their Starwood Distressed Opportunity Fund XI.

Starwood Capital Group has held its first closing for the ninth global real estate fund and has raised $1.2 billion of equity in just four months. They have also suggested offering management fee breaks for the first time to institutional investors and those investors committing a more generous fund of $150m and over. The first closing was held in December 2011, the interim expected to be early 2012 and the final closing is likely to be by summer 2012.

Starwood is imitating an industry trend by offering fee breaks to investors. This acts as an incentive to attract investors and trigger fundraising activities as previously done by The Blackstone Group and the Carlyle Group. The Blackstone Group slashed its management fee for certain investors during the first close of the Blackstone Real Estate Partners VII, which targeted $10 billion of equity in August 2011.

Starwood’s Fund IX will primarily focus on the US distressed opportunities; however 20 to 30 percent of investment will be in Europe and 10 percent in emerging markets.

Over the past 20 years Starwood has averaged over 30 percent gross IRRs on its funds, as well as taking away three Global PERE Awards last year.

Source: PERE 06/01/2012