MANAMA: GFH Financial Group (GFH) has acquired a majority stake in Roebuck Asset Management, a logistics and business space focused real estate asset manager.
Founded in 2009 by Hugh Macdonald-Brown and Nick Rhodes, UK-based Roebuck has managed assets with a total investment value exceeding GBP1.4 billion covering over 15 million sqft. of floor area.
The firm’s primary focus has been on acquisition and management of logistics assets with investments made to date in over 85 properties located in the UK and European countries.
Roebuck also brings to bear additional expertise managing assets on behalf of a group of institutional investors and UHNWIs from the UK, South Africa, India, South Korea, and Malaysia.
With the acquisition of Roebuck, which will continue to operate independently and be managed by its founders, GFH will add significant expertise in European commercial real estate and gain strategic access to prime deal flow.
This will enable the group to more effectively expand investment activities in the logistics real estate sector, a segment of the market showing solid fundamentals and prospects for growth.
GFH chief executive Hisham Alrayes said: “This comes in line with our plan to pursue investments that can help accelerate our growth, further enhance profitability and increase our assets under management. This strategic investment into a profitable platform with a proven track record and capabilities and broad institutional investor base provide GFH with a low risk approach to further expanding in the European market.”
Mr Macdonald-Brown and Mr Rhodes, managing partners of Roebuck, said: “Over the past decade, we have grown our client base and assets under management, and we are confident we will significantly build on this by leveraging off GFH’s network and infrastructure.”
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