Ribston launches £107m industrial fund
RIBSTON, a newly established co-investing manager specialising in UK industrial real estate which has a Yorkshire office at Bowcliffe Hall, has launched a £107m UK fund.
The firm has raised £75m of equity for Ribston UK Industrial Property Unit Trust, which with gearing will have the capacity to invest up to £107m.
Equity is being provided by clients of Aviva Investors Real Estate Multi Managers who were also unitholders in two earlier funds launched, fully invested and sold by Ribston’s management when they were at Hansteen Holdings.
Ribston said the fund will seek to provide a “diversified and resilient income return” to unitholders together with a realised capital return during its seven year life.
It will target annual returns, after fees and expenses, of 10%. Net income will be distributed quarterly. Ribston, as the manager, will receive asset management fees and a performance based promote in addition to the return on its own investment.
James Havery, director of Ribston, said: “In a year punctuated by the Brexit referendum it is particularly satisfying to launch our maiden fund. We now look forward to exploring opportunities that we believe the economic backdrop will present and deploying funds during 2017. We are now very much open for business and believe that a disciplined approach to stock selection based on our management’s wealth of relevant experience will lead to the fund being populated with properties that are well placed to out-perform at both an income and capital level.”
Mark Ovens, director of Ribston, added: “As an entrepreneurial management team we have a strong track record of raising institutional money, launching and operating specialist industrial funds and fully repatriating equity with real performance. We are extremely pleased to re-establish our relationship with Aviva REMM who share our view that the forthcoming year will present interesting opportunities for well capitalised investors. Their continued support and the scale of their investment is testament to their confidence in both us and the sector and we look forward to working with them during the life of the fund.”
Alistair Dryer, senior fund manager at Aviva Investors GIRE, said: “This is an exciting opportunity to invest alongside our partners Ribston, following two very successful funds managed by the team, when they were previously at Hansteen Holdings. We believe it is an opportune point in the investment cycle for our clients to invest in the industrial space, especially so with a management team of this pedigree.”
John Gellatly, head of GIRE, Europe, added: “Our previous investments with the Ribston management team have proved very successful and so it is natural that we would want to shape a further investment club exclusively for the benefit of our clients with a partner with a strong and proven track record. Furthermore, we believe the market timing is propitious – entering a relatively high yielding sector, as cash buyers in 2017. We very much look forward to working together with our partners on this new venture.”
