Eva Poon

The San Diego, California-based private equity real estate firm is continuing on its self-storage buying binge, picking up 1,130 storage units in a suburb of Dallas, Texas.

The Singapore-based development and real estate investment firm has sold the 88-unit Somerset Orchard residences in a bid to ‘redeploy’ capital to global investment opportunities. It follows on the firm's sale last week of its interest in the Capital Tower Beijing office complex.

The world’s sovereign wealth funds are targeting mainly trophy real estate assets, as they wait on the anticipated unloading of ‘distressed’ properties in the US. In the long-term, SWFs are looking to partner with key US players, expanding their roles beyond 'static asset owners.’

Robert Kelly is tasked with overseeing real estate investments for the private equity real estate firm’s Perseus Capital City Fund, as well as its latest $200m vehicle, Perseus Realty Partners II.

Grubb & Ellis Realty Investors, the real estate investment and asset management arm of Grubb & Ellis Company, has picked up a 15-building residential complex in Georgia.

Indian housing lender HDFC will function as an ‘asset reconstruction fund’ targeting developers facing a tougher real estate market. Along with its asset management unit, HDFC will acquire distressed real estate projects in the country.

Dominic Petrucci, former chief operating officer of Cornerstone Real Estate Funds, has joined the firm as chief financial officer.

The Irvine, California-based firm, launched this year by former Grubb and Ellis chairman Anthony Thompson, has hired Neil Miller as chief operating officer and general counsel at the firm.

The AvalonBay Value Added Fund II will seek to acquire multifamily apartments in ‘high barrier-to-entry’ markets in the US.

Continuing on the year’s flurry of deals in the multifamily sector, the Boston-based firm has picked up two properties in Orlando, Florida in one of the biggest multifamily transactions in Orlando this year.