St Hilliers Funds Management Limited has raised $50 million of equity from the institutional investor market with its third closed-end property fund, St Hilliers Enhanced Property Fund No.3.

In announcing the successful closure of the Fund, St Hilliers Chief Executive Officer, Tim Casey said that the equity raising would provide investors with an opportunity to participate in property investments with a gross entry value of over $140 million.

"We were very pleased with the interest shown by both repeat and new investors in the Fund.  This support demonstrates the confidence investors have in the quality of St Hilliers deal pipeline and ability to deliver attractive returns from property activities as evidenced by the strong results from our prior funds," Mr Casey said. 

St Hilliers will put to immediate use a large proportion of investors' equity as it has secured three seed assets for the Fund - a commercial building in Bourke Street, Melbourne and two industrial complexes in Sydney. 

St Hilliers Funds Management Limited, General Manager, Nicholas Ridgwell said the acquisition of the three properties further demonstrates St Hilliers ability to identify investment opportunities and gives investors in the Fund the added benefit of having over 40% of the equity already allocated.

"We are actively pursuing further investment opportunities in our target markets and the success of the equity raising means we can move quickly on two or three further properties for the Fund," Mr Ridgwell said.

"We have been very encouraged by the tenant interest in the Bourke Street property and are confident that we will be able to deliver strong returns to our investors on this and the other properties," he said. 

The investment criteria for St Hilliers Enhanced Property Funds comprise acquiring commercial, industrial, retail and bulky goods properties with existing improvements and current income potential. St Hilliers then seeks to add value by applying its expertise through intensive property management, refurbishment, redevelopment and repositioning in the market place.

St Hilliers manages a number of key industrial and commercial development assets in Victoria and New South Wales. Among these assets is the $77 million 'Bond One' commercial office development in Sydney, which the company recently on-sold to the major financial services group, AXA Australia. St Hilliers is developing the building, which comprises 9,000 square metres of net-lettable area over eight levels with four levels of basement parking, for AXA.

St Hilliers also has acquired a development site at 88 Talavera Road in the Macquarie Park business precinct at North Ryde where it plans to develop a $120 million complex of three, A-Grade commercial buildings with approximately 28,000 square metres of net-lettable area. The Talavera Road property will be developed within a future fund offering.