LONDON: British money manager Legal & General has committed up to US$200 million of investment into U.S. rental housing, as a growing number of investors bet the country's battered real estate market could be poised to recover.
The FTSE 100 company, which manages 1.1 trillion pounds (US$1.4 trillion), said it had also made an undisclosed strategic investment in Boston-based Taurus Investment Holdings, a real estate-focused private equity firm.
Several British investment managers including L&G have been gearing up to expand in U.S. commercial property, Reuters previously reported. The market was hit hard by high borrowing costs and changing work patterns, but has recently shown signs of recovery.
L&G's initial commitment of up to US$200 million to Taurus' investment platform would be focused on so-called multi-family rental properties, a market that has performed better than other struggling areas such as offices.
L&G is targeting rapid growth in private markets - particularly in the U.S. - under a strategy laid out by CEO Antonio Simoes.
"Asset management is the cornerstone of our growth strategy, and scale in private markets globally is key to those ambitions," Simoes said in a statement.
Taurus specialises in buying, selling, developing and leasing properties in the rental housing and industrial sectors, primarily in the U.S. but also in Germany and Britain.