While Melbourne real estate house Qualitas is the talk of the town thanks to its eye-watering mandate, rival MaxCap has gone one better.
MaxCap’s investments include a $97 million debt facility to Franze Developments’ Geelong Quarter in the regional Victorian city of Geelong.
Not to be outdone by Qualitas’ $700 million from ADIA, MaxCap is understood to have received a near $1 billion check from its now biggest client, Apollo Global Management.
Sources said MaxCap was looking to deploy the capital in the property credit market, providing construction facilities, first mortgages on land and the like, at a time when there’s no shortage of deals for credit funds.
It’s not surprising to see Apollo Global go big in property credit – it is the firm’s bread and butter globally. It’s also not surprising seeing it getting closer to MaxCap, with Apollo having taken aa 50 per cent stake in the Melbourne-based property financier last year.
But it’s interesting to see the sheer size of Apollo’s commitment, particularly at a time when analysts and property market watchers are fawning over Qualitas. The company’s shares are up nearly 40 per cent this week.
Qualitas announced on Monday that it had secured a $700 million investment mandate from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), in a deal that could also see ADIA take a near 10 per cent stake in the manager.
The sovereign wealth fund’s mandate could increase to $1.7 billion if it took the maximum 9.9 per cent equity stake.