Henderson Global Investors has created
its first US open-ended commingled
fund, the Henderson Property Fund. Its goal for the next two to three years is to accumulate gross assets in the fund to the value of $500m (e412m).
Henderson has appointed its head of research, Ed Pierzak, as portfolio manager. He believes there will be significant interest in the vehicle. He said: “Pension funds and other institutional investors will be the kinds of investors that will put capital into this fund.”
The fund will have one advantage over its competitors. Investors can go into it right away. New investors committing capital to many of the top performing, core, open-ended commingled funds have a waiting period of six to nine months before their capital is actually admitted. This is due to the sheer weight of capital in the market.
Henderson has already seeded its property fund with assets with to the value of $181.8m.
In the future the fund will be pursuing two
kinds of transactions. Around 75% of the deals
will be either core or core-plus. This, for the
most part, means buying established and leased properties.
The other 25% of the portfolio will be made up of value-added investment opportunities. All the deals will be done through Henderson’s ‘Manager of Partners’ program. One of these partners is Inland Retail Real Estate Trust.
The trust is acquiring grocery-anchored shopping centers in the US southeast.The total capitalisation of the venture is $360m. Another partnership exists with the Olson Company to invest in affordable housing in California.
Henderson is looking to invest in a mixture of industrial, retail and apartment asset. It will look for properties across the US in primary and secondary markets.

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