New York-headquartered BlackRock Inc. is planning to start a fund that will provide direct loans to European commercial property developers.
The Financial Times reports that the fund is designed to fill a void created by the slowdown in commercial real estate lending by European banks. The fund will be part of BlackRock Alternative Investors, which manages $118 billion of the company's $3.7 trillion in assets; no date has been set on the fund's launch, nor has the company determined the fund's size.
‘Credit is particularly tight in Europe, where banks are retrenching,’ says Jack Chandler, head of BlackRock's global real estate business. ‘This could be a terrific opportunity for the next half-decade.’
