Standard Life Investments (SLI) Wednesday announced the first closing of a new Canadian Real Estate Fund (CREF), raising $77 million in initial equity.
The fund is structured as a semi open-ended Canadian Limited Partnership with an English Limited Partnership feeder fund for non-Canadian investors. The fund was intentionally designed for both domestic and international institutional investors to access the Canadian real estate market.
“The launch of the new fund is consistent with our desire to offer our global client base access to real estate markets where we can demonstrably add value. The Canadian market is one we know well with our existing fund having grown over the last three years by 142% to its current $1.3 billion,” said David Paine, Head of real estate investments, in a release.
The SLI real estate team in Toronto has been providing domestic investors with access to the Canadian real estate market for over 30 years. The existing core, fully open-ended, fund has delivered strong long-term performance of 9.4% per year since launch on Dec. 31 1982, and has grown to over $1.3 billion.
The new fund will focus on a core-plus strategy with managed liquidity and leverage, and will allow access for non-Canadian investors to a market that SLI believes offers strong long-term investment potential.
The fund will also expand the existing Canadian real estate product suite with a complementary strategy.