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Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), the UAE’s largest sovereign wealth fund, has doubled its stake to $1.4 billion Australian dollar ($902 million) in a fund operated by the Australia-based alternative real estate investment firm, Qualitas Limited.
ADIA’s latest investment of A$700 million brings the total funds under management for the Qualitas group to A$7.5 billion, of which 78% (A$5.8 billion) is in private credit and 81% is invested on behalf of institutional investors, the company announced on their website.
ADIA’s initial A$700 million investment in August 2022 led to the establishment of the Qualitas Diversified Credit Investments (QDCI), which was accompanied by the issue of an option for ADIA to acquire up to 32.6 million Qualitas shares at a strike price of A$2.50 until 1 August 2024. ADIA also holds options for the issue of three additional tranches. Each tranche of options has 3.2 million ordinary shares in Qualitas with the same expiry date as the initial tranche options.
Qualitas added that its co-investment in QDCI has also increased from A$35 million to A$50 million.
In a statement following the announcement, Andrew Schwartz, Group Managing Director and Co-Founder said: “Since the financial year ended on 30 June 2023, we have raised A$1.45 billion incremental capital in the Australian CRE private credit sector. This represents strong evidence of conviction in the sector from global institutional investors. Qualitas’ CRE [Commercial real estate] private credit funds are delivering returns exceeding inflation on a compounding basis with downside protection.”
(Writing by Bindu Rai, editing by Brinda Darasha)
