The Oaktree Real Estate Opportunities Fund VIII is the company’s largest real estate fund raise to date. It exceeded the group’s target of $3.5 billion.
The fund has already invested or committed around $1.7 billion with the money being used on a combination of assets.
At the start of the pandemic, it was used on distressed real estate-related securities.
More recently, financing has been given to public and private real estate lenders and owners experiencing issues with their leverage.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has created a compelling set of credit-focused investment opportunities for our fund,” John Brady, portfolio manager and head of the global real estate group at Oaktree Capital Management, said in a statement. “We’re very thankful for the support and confidence we’ve received for our opportunistic, yet risk-controlled, approach to investing.”
The real estate strategies portion of Oaktree Capital’s business has more than $11 billion in assets under management and nearly 60 employees.
In 2019, major real estate player Brookfield Asset Management acquired a majority interest in Oaktree, which continues to operate as an independent business. Prior to the Brookfield deal, Oaktree was a public company for six years.
In December, Denver-based oil and gas investment company BKV Corp. announced Oaktree had invested $100 million in the company. The funds will be used to support BKV’s acquisition of Devon Energy Corp.’s assets in the Barnett Shale in North Texas.
Oaktree also agreed to make a future $600 million investment in unspecified natural gas opportunities. The deal was first announced a year earlier with slightly different terms.
Also last year, Oaktree became the first foreign distressed debt company to set up a wholly owned unit in China. The subsidiary is known as Oaktree (Beijing) Investment Management Co.
It had $5.4 million in registered capital to start. The company had already invested $6.5 billion in China’s distressed debt market, according to Beijing’s financial regulatory department.
