Royal London Asset Management has announced the largest launch of a UK property Fund, worth over €3.05bn (£2.7bn). The Royal London UK Real Estate Fund (RLUKREF) invests in UK commercial property across all major sectors (industrials, offices, retail warehouses, shopping centres) and regions and is designed to provide domestic and foreign institutional investors exposure to the UK commercial real estate market.
Fully seeded by Royal London, the Fund invests in prime UK properties, over two-thirds being in London in locations including New Bond Street, Covent Garden, Trafalgar Square, Oxford Street and St Paul’s The required initial investment is €56.5m (£50m).
Drew Watkins is the lead Portfolio Fund Manager for the fund and Stephanie Hacking is the Deputy Portfolio Fund Manager.
Piers Hillier, chief investment officer at RLAM commented: “This Fund launch is a vote of confidence in the UK and its real estate market. There are few places in the world with as many prime real estate assets as London, and we believe its property market presents an attractive opportunity for domestic and foreign institutional investors. The long-term outlook for UK property remains attractive and the prime nature of this offering provides an excellent opportunity for long-term investors to gain exposure to a high quality and well diversified property portfolio.”
Drew Watkins added: “This launch gives institutional investors a unique opportunity to access a significant number of quality property assets which are not often traded, and especially not within a single investment fund.”
