Pan-Asian private equity giant PAG announced on Thursday the final close of its latest real estate investment fund with $4 billion in commitments, including co-investment capital, surpassing its $3.5 billion target, according to a company statement.
The fund—SCREP VIII—is part of the Secured Capital Real Estate Partners (SCREP) series, which comprises opportunistic real estate vehicles focused on property and debt investments across markets and sectors in developed Asia.
SCREP VIII is the tenth in the series and plans to invest in data centres, logistics, offices, multifamily, and distressed debt.
Previously, the firm highlighted focusing its efforts in China, Australia, and South Korea, among other markets through the fund series. With its latest fund, however, its largest investment focus will be in Japan, followed by Australia and South Korea, according to the statement.
A high proportion of existing limited partners (LPs) re-upped in the fund, according to the announcement. Investors of the fund are primarily pensions, and sovereign wealth funds from North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific.
Asian LPs make up about 40% of the investor base of the new fund, sources close to the matter told DealStreetAsia. Roughly 10% of the new fund has been already been deployed, they added.
SCREP VIII marks the largest US dollar-denominated real estate fundraising dedicated to Asia Pacific in the last 12 months, according to data from Preqin.
Last January, the alternatives investment firm scored $100 million in commitments from Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS) for SCREP VIII. Its predecessor closed at $2.75 billion in 2020, which also received commitments from TRS.
Last March, PAG’s private equity business acquired Dalian Wanda’s shopping mall unit in a $8.3 billion deal alongside CITIC Capital, Ares Management, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), and Mubadala—a rare deal of such magnitude in China’s crisis-hit property sector.
PAG has three core strategies—credit and markets, private equity, and real assets. PAG Real Assets, which was initially founded as Secured Capital Japan in 1997, has invested $45 billion in more than 7,400 properties across the Asia-Pacific region.
