Qualitas secures $550m credit mandate



Qualitas has received a $550 million credit mandate from a North American-based global institutional investor.
The Australian alternative real estate investment manager announced that the mandate will be invested in commercial real estate (CRE) private credit across construction loans, predevelopment land loans and investment loans.
Qualitas will also co-invest up to $25 million over the life of the $550 million mandate, representing a 4.5 per cent co-investment.
The commitment has driven Qualitas’ total funds under management (FUM) to reach $8.6 billion as at 26 June 2024, equating to a 42 per cent FUM rise since 30 June 2023.
According to the firm, a significant proportion of its FUM is invested in private credit (81 per cent), while 83 per cent is invested on behalf of institutional investors.
Commenting on the announcement, Andrew Schwartz, group managing director and co-founder of Qualitas, said: “The Australian CRE private credit sector continues to attract allocations from global institutional investors and pleasingly Qualitas has achieved another record year of capital raising with net $2.5 billion raised since 30 June 2023.
“We believe this new mandate, our first from an institutional investor based in North America, is a testament to our track record and increasing scale of our asset management platform, which enables us to deploy at scale for the right investment opportunities.”
The real estate investment manager matches global capital with access to attractive risk-adjusted investments in real estate private credit and private equity.
For more than 15 years, Qualitas has made investments to finance assets with a combined value of over $24 billion across all real estate sectors (as at 31 December 2023).
Its Qualitas Diversified Real Estate Fund, launched in December 2021, seeks to own real estate that is tenanted by businesses providing essential services to the Australian economy, or where the real estate is vital to the tenant’s operations.
The fund can provide long-term defensive and inflation-resilient cash flows by owning the underlying core operating assets of these Australian businesses.
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