KKR Raises $700M For Big Push Into European Real Estate

Private equity firm KKR has completed a $980M (£707M) equity raise for a new fund that will target European property.

KKR completed the latest closing for the KKR Real Estate Partners Europe Fund II in February, according to documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company could still raise more for the fund, the document said. 

Compared to private equity peers like Blackstone, Apollo and Cerberus, KKR is a relative newcomer to European real estate investing, taking its first steps in the sector in 2012 and raising its first European fund in 2016, when it raised $760M. 

But the new slug of capital puts it among the largest dedicated European funds raised in recent years. It will target value-add and opportunistic investments in Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, according to a filing from the Maine Public Employees Retirement System, which invested $25M in the fund. 

In September last year, it hired veteran LaSalle Investment Management European head Simon Marrison as a senior adviser for its European real estate business, which is run by Guillaume Cassou. 

Just like its private equity peers, KKR’s recent investments have been in the beds and sheds sectors. 

In 2020 it bought a stake in Mirastar, the pan-European logistics developer that recently bought £260M of assets in the UK; a majority stake in Etche, a French company with a €400M (£342M) portfolio of light industrial and logistics assets; and a majority stake in Velero, the German residential specialist, which it will use to set up a German residential platform.

One exception to that strategy: In September last year, KKR also paid about £75M for a 5% stake in London office REIT Great Portland Estates. It is sitting on a tidy profit from that deal — since then, shares in Great Portland have risen 25%.