Kames Capital has enjoyed £50 million (€59.6 million) of seed money from the West Midlands Pension Fund into its second version of the firm’s closed-ended UK Active Value Property Unit Trust.
The first version of the fund raised £275 million, of which the West Midlands Pension Fund invested £61.7 million, the fund’s largest single allocation to a UK property fund.
The second fund will follow the original’s investment strategy, targeting good quality secondary commercial property, particularly developments in the £5 million – £15 million bracket. It will be managed by Philip Bach, supported by the Kames property team.
The £11.6 billion UK local authority pension scheme already has £3.27 billion exposure to alternatives, of which £971 million is invested in property, as of March 31 2016.
A spokesperson for Kames said the result of the EU Referendum had produced high levels of volatility in the UK commercial property market, which in turn provided opportunities for active investors to acquire good-quality secondary assets at reduced prices.
Other UK pension funds also see opportunities in the UK property sector – earlier this week, Aberdeen Asset Management raised £115 million equity from a number of UK pension funds to invest in the UK private rental sector.
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