HGI Looking to Buy, Buy, Buy

English fund manager Henderson Global Investors (HGI) is going on a buying rampage in an effort to capitalize on the worldwide distressed asset market.

According to HousingWire sources, HGI is looking to buy entire portfolios, and in some cases entire firms, as a focus on dislocation in the property market.

The strategy is widely seen as a response to lagging stock market returns and owing to the lack of consistency in listed company’s individual performance. At any rate, HGI is on the move.

The firm also recently picked up Deutsche Bank veteran Ganesh Rajendra in a new role as adviser within structured products. Ganesh ran a sell-side research team at Deutsche as part of the Global Markets Research.

Rajendra recently gave a talk at the Global ABS conference in London, according to an ABS trader who attended, in which he said HGI is working on a $500m closed-end investment fund that was looking for five-year investments in the distressed asset arena. Another source at the conference confirmed this claim, adding that the fund would target the senior part of the capital structure in securitizations, and also target institutional investors.

So far, there is no word if this fund is related to HGI’s new Central London Office Fund II, a seven year absolute return, closed ended fund designed to capitalize on the cyclicality of the central London office market. The fund will be marketed to UK and overseas institutional investors and has a target annualised IRR of 12% over the life of the fund.

Henderson is seeking to raise up to £200m ($329m) for a first close by the end of 2009, with overall target equity raise up to £500m.

Fund manager, Clive Castle says, “The central London office market is one of the most liquid, transparent and exciting property markets worldwide. We are already beginning to see interesting assets at attractive prices, and aim to be in a position to invest ahead of the general market re-pricing expected from 2010 into 2011. Everything in the strategy and structure of the fund has been designed to capture the benefits offered by this unique market and its cyclicality and to release them to investors.”

Write to Jacob Gaffney.