Dolphin Capital Partners (DCP), the South-Eastern European private equity firm, has revealed plans to launch a €100m fund to invest in the leisure integrated real estate sector.
The Athens-based firm believes that with the growing number of retirees in North Europe moving abroad, as well as the increasing amount of second and holiday home buyers, there is an increasing appetite for property away from the traditional location of South West Europe which is overcrowded. DCP estimates the potential size of the market in South East Europe to be over €3bn.
DCP has already identified investment opportunities and anticipates committing around €75m within the first two years and aims to have invested in at least two projects in each of the region’s targeted countries within the first three years. The firm expects to generate an IRR of over 30%.
The fund will be managed by DCP managing partner Miltos Kambourides, a founding member and now retired partner of Soros Real Estate Partners (SREP), a global real estate private equity business formed in 1999 by George Soros and Richard Georgi to manage a $1bn fund investing in Europe and Japan.
Kambourides will be joined by Pierre Charalambides as partner, the former acquisitions director of SouthEast Land Holdings, the investment platform of SREP in South Eastern Europe.
Both will be committing up to €1m of their own capital to the fund. The investment committee will be made up of two representatives of the largest limited partners, two independent members, as well as the two GPs themselves. Kambourides says potential investors will be mostly wealthy individuals and family offices from Greece, Cyprus, UK, Middle East and Russia.
Baker & McKenzie are acting as legal advisors to Dolphin. A placement agent is not currently being used.