GLOBAL – Capital Alliance Partners, a London-based real estate fund advisory company, has been launched ahead of a wave of planned fund launches targeting institutional investors.

Arnaud van der Wyck, managing director at Capital, was previously in charge of real estate fund raising at boutique alternative investment manager Shore Capital for nearly three years but left to set up the new advisory firm.

He said the company would target its services at closed-ended private equity real estate funds raising between €50m and €500m. A number of launches were planned targeting France, Bulgaria and Latin America to tap into renewed investor demand for global real estate investments, he said.

He added: “Over the last 20 years, as the cult of equity has taken hold, institutional investment in real estate has dropped from about 10% or 15% but over the last three years the institutions have realised this may not have been the best decision. Now there is a concerted effort by the industry to improve liquidity and product quality and while European institutional investment in real estate is in its infancy the pension funds, such as Storebrand, are looking outside of their home markets to analyse opportunities abroad.

“Scandinavia and the UK are the two markets which have experienced a sea-change in real estate investing as returns have been better than equities and bonds over the past 10 years and there is a greater availability of unquoted products.”