Canadian investment manager Brookfield Asset Management raised $500M for a new real estate opportunity fund in the fourth quarter of 2024, taking the total it has raised for the fund to $8.5B.

In results for Q4 2024, Brookfield said that it expected to hold a final close for Brookfield Strategic Real Estate Partners V in the first half of this year.

It started raising capital for the fund in 2023 with a target of $15B of equity.

BAM is the asset management arm spun out of Brookfield Corp. It manages the firm’s closed-ended opportunity funds as well as its open-ended funds, which don’t have a set end date.

In a letter to investors, CEO Bruce Flatt said sentiment in the real estate market is improving, and BAM expects to start buying and selling more in 2025.

The real estate division had $271B of assets under management with 295 investment professionals at the end of Q4. It also runs several real estate debt funds as part of its $317B credit business, the largest of BAM’s divisions.

BAM has spent about $2.3B of the $8.5B it has raised so far for its fifth opportunity fund, it said in its results presentation.

About $800M of that came in the fourth quarter of last year, including the purchase of a portfolio of U.S. multifamily properties with nearly 5,000 units, a portfolio of 14 U.S. student housing assets comprising 9,000 beds and some of the assets of Tritax Eurobox, a publicly listed pan-European logistics REIT.

It also sold $1.8B in assets in Q4, including a portfolio of UK retail parks, which was bought by British Land.

The previous opportunity fund in the series raised $15.3B in 2021. So far, $12.9B of that has been spent, generating a gross internal rate of return of 10% and a net IRR of 7%.

BAM is also raising capital for its seventh real estate debt fund, which has racked up $600M to date.

Fee revenue from its real estate funds was $249M in Q4, up 9%, or $20M, from real estate fee revenue the previous quarter.