The European property firm, LRC Group, has paid around €150 million to obtain 600 private and business properties from Oaktree member, Targeted Investment Opportunities (TIO) in Ireland.
The deal, which is understood to have been completed two weeks ago, reports The Irish Times, will see LRC take ownership of hundreds of buy-to-let homes across Dublin, Cork, and Galway, as well as a small number of commercial properties.
It is believed the portfolio had been prepared for a potential deal on the open market by TIO under the moniker Project Turner before LRC moved to verify it in an off-showcase exchange.
The Irish Time states that both LRC and Oaktree declined to comment on the transaction.
LRC’s purchase of the Project Turner portfolio brings the number of residential properties it owns and controls across Dublin and Ireland’s other main cities to just over 1,600.
Despite the sheer degree of its interest in the nation’s private rented sector market, the company has figured out how to manage its presence in the segment unobtrusively, and without the consideration stood to other major global land financial investors.
Indeed, LRC’s last reported deal in the Irish residential market took place in February of last year. On that occasion, the company fended off six other bidders to acquire a mixed-use investment at Smithfield Lofts on North King Street in Dublin for just over €10 million. The figure represented a premium of €750,000 on the €9.5 million guide price set by agent Hooke & MacDonald when it brought the properties to the market in November 2016.
Smithfield Lofts is a five-story-over-basement building containing 57 apartments, six two-story townhouses, and commercial units. LRC acquired 44 of the apartments, six townhouses, and 33 car-parking spaces. The other 13 apartments and commercial units remained in private ownership.
Meanwhile, the Project Turner portfolio, which LRC acquired two weeks ago, is understood to be fully buy-to-let and 80 percent occupied. Sources familiar with its composition said the properties comprise a mix of apartments, houses and a small number of pre-63 period houses.
By far most of Project Turner’s Dublin private units are comprehended to have been verified initially by Oaktree towards the finish of 2014 with its obtaining of the benefits contained in Project Venus, an arrangement of purchase to-let speculation properties held by Bank of Ireland.
Outside of its expanding stake in Ireland’s private rented sector market, LRC has a significant interest in the country’s hospitality sector.
Last year, the company acquired the Irish-led hotel investment and management company, Amaris Hospitality, from US private equity firm, Lone Star in a deal valued at £600 million (€678.5 million).
Established in 1995 by Israeli investor Yehuda Barashi, the wider LRC Group has grown its presence across Europe to the point where it now has over €5 billion of residential and commercial assets under management.
