Darien, Conn.-based OFREE Fund has opened a secondary fund to provide liquidity to private and hard-money funds, mortgage pools and their investors. Funds are used to source additional commercial lending opportunities, or to boost operating performance and returns.
‘We're a fund that invests in other funds,’ says OFREE Director Richard Zahm. ‘We come from the private lending space, we understand the model. We're a niche of private equity providing fresh capital to a niche of real estate lending.’
OFREE funds can be used for stabilizing properties within a portfolio, construction completion, repositioning, or operations. Debt and equity capital are available for performing and nonperforming loans secured by commercial properties and raw land, nationwide. Individual investors can also obtain liquidity for investments that have extended beyond their expiration dates. LPs use secondary funds to rebalance their portfolios, or to adjust their exposure to particular managers, properties or locations.
Zahm, co-founder of California bridge lender Second Angel Bancorp, believes the time is right for secondary involvement. ‘OFREE's bringing the advantages of private lending to private lenders themselves: flexibility, creativity and speed,’ he says. ‘Private lending's a great place to be now.’
