TTB Partners, a Hong Kong based investment and advisory firm, today announced the acquisition of a minority stake in M7 Real Estate. The investment is the latest step in a wider collaboration between the two companies, as they seek to capitalize on the continued appetite from Asian investors for European real estate.
TTB will utilize its own network of contacts in the region to access new capital pools looking to invest in UK and pan-European real estate, either through joint ventures or through investment funds.
M7 Real Estate is a leading specialist in the pan-European, regional, multi-let real estate market. Their suite of fund products has been a consistent top-quartile performer and has realised a cumulative net IRR of 28.3% and 2.12x on over €2.25bn of assets, held across 14 fully exited vehicles. With over 200 employees in 14 countries across Europe, M7 Real Estate manages over 830 retail, office and industrial properties with a value of circa €5 billion.
“This partnership marks an exciting development for TTB,” said TTB Co-founder Jonathan Bond. “We are very pleased to formalise our relationship with M7, having worked together for some time including active investment in their fund product. Despite challenging current market conditions, we continue to see a strong trend of Asia-based capital pools searching for robust European assets with a particular interest in asset classes such as regional offices and retail warehousing. These asset classes are expected to benefit from increased demand as working patterns and consumer habits continue to evolve as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. We now look forward to helping M7 strengthen its growing presence in Asia.”
Richard Croft, Chairman of M7 commented: “Since we formed M7 Real Estate, Asian investors have been a very important source of capital for our business and we are fortunate to have many long-established partnerships and clients in the region. Despite the current COVID-19 crisis we are firm believers in the underlying fundamentals of many parts of the UK and European real estate market over the long term. We also have strong ambitions to continue to grow M7 and recognise both the ongoing strength of demand for European real estate from Asian investors and the importance of finding new partners in the region who can help us achieve our goals. Having worked with TTB for some time now and been impressed by the depth and breadth of their relationships, we are therefore very pleased to welcome them as a shareholder in M7 while looking forward to working with their team in the future.”