Robin Marriott

Kildare Partners, the new $2 billion private equity real estate firm of Ellis Short, has hired a new partner in its London HQ to boost its European acquisitions program.

The two firms have bought the Equinox Portfolio of office buildings in the Netherlands that were originally acquired by Deutsche Bank on behalf of its DB Real Estate Opportunities IB fund in 2005.

The Project Tower portfolio acquired by the New York firm contains loans backed by assets mainly in Ireland, the UK and Germany.

The bank's real estate team, headed up by Alan Kava and Jim Garman (pictured), will make investments from Broad Street Real Estate Credit Partners II, which has so far invested just over $500 million.

The real estate division of French insurance giant AXA has been selected by five Danish pension funds for a mandate to make senior property loans in Western Europe, mainly concentrating on the UK.

Pluto Finance, the London-based provider of stretch-senior loans for residential developments has won investment from The Blackstone Group’s Tactical Opportunities business and Clearbell Capital.

Competition for assets is ‘fierce’ says accountant KPMG, as New York-based Cerberus Capital Management agrees the purchase of a portfolio of loans sold by Ireland’s National Asset Management Agency (NAMA).

The California-based firm has closed the Bank Recapitalization and Value Opportunities II fund (Bravo I) with a focus on real estate as it targets institutions looking to shed assets.

The Chicago-based firm has reached its hard cap for LaSalle Real Estate Debt Strategies II, giving the overall platform in Europe more than £1 billion to deploy in debt and special situations.

Stress tests to be carried out by the European Central Bank in 2014 could well be a catalyst for further bank sales on the Continent.