Crow Holdings Closes New Fund at $1.9B

By Gail Kalinoski, Contributing Editors

Bob McClain

Crow Holdings Capital – Real Estate, a Dallas-based asset manager of private equity real estate funds, has closed Crow Holdings Realty Partners VII at $1.85 billion in capital commitments and has already started putting that money to work acquiring another diverse portfolio of assets.

Consistent with prior CHC- Real Estate funds, Fund VII intends to make investments in assets that generate current income and benefit from capital appreciation including industrial, retail, office, multifamily, convenience stores and gas stations, hotel and self-storage. The fund, which focuses on North American investments, will acquire existing properties and develop new projects.

“We are pleased to close on Fund VII, a fund that is well-positioned to capitalize on opportunities that build on our track record of real estate value creation,” Bob McClain, head of real estate investment strategies at CHC-Real Estate, said in a prepared statement. “We now look forward to executing on a strong pipeline that reflects our disciplined investment approach.”

A company spokesman said “a significant amount of Fund VII capital” has already been placed.

“These commitments represent investments across the multifamily, industrial, retail, office, student housing, public storage and hotel product types,” the representative told Commercial Property Executive.

CHC-Real Estate also closed its inaugural Crow Holdings Retail Fund at $295 million in June. That fund was “created in response to an attractive small retail market containing a large volume of transactions with attractive profit potential. CHRF will generally seek to target well-located retail properties with an initial purchase price of $17.5 million or less,” the spokesperson said.

Anne Raymond

“We are grateful to our investment partners for their support and continued confidence in our team, recognizing our long track record of providing consistent returns through the various market cycles,” Anne Raymond, president of Crow Holdings Capital, said in a prepared statement. “Since starting in the private equity real estate fund business in 1998, funds have totaled $6.25 billion – including $800 million of commitments from the Crow family – demonstrating strong alignment with our investment partners.”

Those eight funds were used to acquire or develop nearly $16 billion in assets.

Fund VI closed in August 2013 with $1.067 billion in commitments, the largest until Fund VII. As of June 30, 2015, Fund VI had invested in 60 transactions with gross investments totaling more than $3 billion, including co-investments. Early investments in Fund VI included seven multifamily properties in Austin, Texas; Fairfax, Va.; Dallas; Tampa, Fla.; Phoenix; Atlanta and Washington, D.C., along with industrial acquisitions in Austin, Phoenix and Atlanta. Two medical office properties in Texas and three retail assets in Atlanta and two in the Washington, D.C. Metro area were also part of the early stage investing from Fund VI. In March 2014, Fund VI acquired the historic Brown Palace Hotel & Spa and the adjacent Comfort Inn Downtown Denver.

Fund V raised $952 million in equity in 2008 and placed it between 2008 and 2012 in 53 investments of approximately $18 million each. The first fund raised $281 million in 1998 and spent it on 42 investments of about $5 million each between 1998 and 2001.