Barwood Capital closes new £100m UK regional property growth fund

By Bridging Loan Directory 21st July 2015

Barwood Capital has closed its Barwood Property Fund 2015, its latest five year fund, with the ability to secure more than £100 million of commercial and residential property assets in the UK regional markets.

The Fund will target commercial and residential real estate assets with lot sizes of between £3 million-£25 million in UK regional markets and across all asset classes. Barwood Capital, acting in its capacity as investment and asset manager to the Fund, will aim to deliver strong investor returns by adding significant value to the portfolio through asset management, planning gain and development, leveraging its team’s extensive real estate expertise and taking advantage of the current positive arbitrage between primary and secondary assets. Barwood Capital has an experienced in house team and, in order to spread its reach throughout the UK, will also fund other credible developers to deliver value from the assets it secures.

Joanna Greenslade, managing director of Barwood Capital, has overall responsibility for the fund, while Richard Bowen, a founding director of Barwood Capital, will sit on the Fund Investment Committee. Giles King has been appointed as Fund chairman and is a founder director of Westmount Real Estate. Prior to Westmount, Giles was at CBRE Global Investors for 17 years where he was EMEA head of investor services and a member of the European Executive Committee and European Management Board. Barwood Capital directors Ed Henson and recently appointed Andrew Barlow, will be responsible for sourcing and managing new opportunities for the Fund.

The Fund has been raised from predominately high net worth individuals, and institutional investors, including British Airways Pension Trustees Limited, the majority of which have invested in previous Barwood Capital funds. Executives from Barwood have personally co-invested nearly GBP3m providing strong alignment with clients.

Barwood’s approach is to provide investors with a real sense of asset ownership, yet enable them to spread their risk across a portfolio that is actively managed on their behalf, as well as a personal relationship and attention from senior accessible professionals that truly understand the market.

Greenslade said:

“We are delighted that the Fund has closed and been so well subscribed from a broad range of investors. The successful fund raising has been a result of our track record in delivering outstanding investor returns and due to our highly experienced team of professionals, who have particular in depth knowledge of the regional commercial and residential property markets. We have already identified a pipeline of potential assets and are able to act quickly to complete on deals. We look forward to being able to announce the Fund’s first acquisitions.”