Moorfield Group, the UK-focused real estate investment manager, has raised an initial £330 million for MREFV - the latest fund in its flagship value-add series - and co-investment initiatives, so far.
The total equity raised came from institutional investors based in Europe, North America and Japan, including Moorfield’s first UK-domiciled investors (university college endowments).
Moorfield’s ‘hub-and-spoke’ model incorporates MREFV as the ‘hub’, with sector-specific side-car vehicles as ‘spokes’, that are seeded by the ‘hub’ and grown with additional co-investment funding from the MREFV investors or in joint ventures with other investors.
The first spoke to have been created is the private non-traded REIT (MREIT), which is investing in the residential-for-rent sectors (single-family housing for rent and student HMOS). MREIT, which was set up in 2023, has a target to reach value of £500 million.
Moorfield plans to raise a further £250 million for the spokes, with vehicles planned initially in self-storage and multi-family build-to-rent (BTR). The purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA), co-living, logistics, and industrial open-storage (IOS) also have potential for sector-specific side-car vehicles. In total, Moorfield is targeting £1 billion of investment in the UK.
Moorfield was an early mover in many of these sectors, first investing in PBSA in 1997; independent retirement communities (IRCs) in 2008; BTR in 2012; self-storage in 2020; single-family housing for rent and student HMOs in 2021; and IOS in 2022.
MREFV’s most recent investment was a £150 million, 440-apartment BTR development in Greater Manchester, supporting the delivery of much-needed new housing supply. This investment also signalled Moorfield’s renewed confidence to invest following its successful disposal program of all mature investments in 2021 and 2022.
Source: Press release sent 25 July 2024.