Fund managers set up real estate firm
Three fund managers have set up a new real estate investment company focusing on the UK, hoping to tap into demand for improved investment returns in the face of tumbling capital values.
Carrick Real Estate Investment Management will focus on managing property assets to improve returns, rather than managing investment portfolios, according to Chris Darroch, one of the directors of the company.
Darroch, who manages the property portfolios of the Strathclyde and Aberdeen City Council pension funds – which are worth a total £1bn (€1.2bn) – is serving out his notice at Aberdeen Property Investors.
He will hand over the portfolios to a new recruit who joins the company in November. Aberdeen declined to name the new fund manager.
The launch comes after almost a year of declining capital values in UK commercial property, according to the Investment Property Databank.
Darroch said: “We will manage assets to maximise investment performance and therefore returns to the investors. This will be done by adopting an aggressive active management approach to the assets to ensure that, amongst other things, we understand the tenant requirements and identify opportunities and threats going forward.”
He will be reunited with two former colleagues, Stephen Doyle and David McBeth, who worked with him at Scottish Amicable Investment Management on real estate portfolios for pension funds, including the Strathclyde and Tyne & Wear funds. Doyle and McBeth are already working in the new company’s Glasgow office.
The £9.2bn Strathclyde pension fund said that it will not put any more money into its real estate portfolio until it learns who will replace Darroch as the lead manager on its property investments, and is reassured about the impact of Aberdeen’s acquisition of Goodman Property Investors earlier this year, according to papers on the Glasgow city council’s web site.
-- Write to Phil Craig at pcraig@efinancialnewsc.om
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