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NOW Closed – Now closed to investment.

Fund facts

Investor Type
Wholesale investors only
Asset Class
Global Real Estate
APIR
SPI1337AU
ASRN
N/A
IM Date
April 11, 2019
Suggested Investment Period
5-7 years
Distribution
Biannually as at 30 June and 31 December
Redemptions
N/A - The Fund is close-ended
Applications
Closed to new investment
Wrap Access
Available on Ausmaq, Netwealth, HUB24 and soon on BT Wrap
Investment Partner

BACKGROUND

The term ‘multifamily’ is one that may be unfamiliar to many Australian investors, quite simply because it is an asset class that does not yet exist in Australia. Multifamily describes an apartment complex or community, where all of the occupants are tenants, i.e. there are no owner-occupiers. The property is owned in whole by a single owner, often an institutional investor or family office. These can be large assets, providing between 300 and over 1,200 rental units in a single property. They can either be ‘downtown’ high-rise, or suburban low-rise, gated, ‘garden-style’ communities. Larger assets employ on-site property and leasing managers with 24/7 on-site security. Leases are for 12 months, although many tenants stay for much longer periods – from years to decades. Investors like the shorter term leases in multifamily, as it allows quicker access to market increases than other property types.

Approximately 35% of US households are ‘renters’ and over the past 30-years, the multifamily market has grown to the point where it is the dominant provider of residential rental accommodation in the US. New household formation, immigration, a transient US workforce, and – increasingly – downsizing seniors, are all important demand drivers.

Multifamily has also grown to become the second largest commercial property asset class in the US, second only behind the commercial office market. The US multifamily market has deep liquidity, with over US$170 billion in assets traded during 2018. This liquidity is supported by many different lenders, from national and regional banks, to the largest lender in the sector – Freddie Mac – which underwrote and securitised US$78 billion of multifamily loans during 2018.

Passive, yield-focused investors in multifamily are attracted by the low volatile nature of the income streams that stabilised (i.e fully leased at market rates), well managed multifamily apartment communities generate. A multifamily community with 1,000 tenants provides much less vacancy risk and rental volatility than a commercial office or industrial property of the same leasable area, which may only have a handful of tenants. As such, multifamily has been called the ‘gold standard’ for institutional property investors since the GFC.

This low-risk profile of multifamily is particularly the case with Class-B multifamily properties, as evidenced by the Fund’s US Investment Manager, Bridge Investment Group’s experience with its portfolio of circa 9,000 Class-B units during the Global Financial Crisis. Their experience was an initial GFC induced fall in Net Operating Income (NOI) of 3%, but recovery into positive territory within 12-months as housing affordability became paramount. Over the past decade, national multifamily vacancy rates have fallen to below 5%, and rents for ‘Class-B’ assets – where the fund will focus – and have been increasing between 4% and 5% per annum. In addition, most new supply has been in ‘Class-A’ product, which needs to achieve much higher rents (often 3 to 4 times higher), than Class-B, due to their higher land and construction costs. There is negligible new supply of Class-B product. Also, value-add Class-B multifamily assets, can be acquired at significant discounts to replacement cost, sometimes in the order of 50%. This provides substantial pricing power relative to Class-A and caters to a much broader target market. These are the reasons that Class-B remains the ‘smart’ choice in US multifamily investing.

OVERVIEW

Spire USA Multifamily Fund IV (AUD) (‘the Fund’) acts as a wholesale Australian feeder fund into the strategy and assets of Bridge Multifamily Fund IV LP (“BMF IV”); a Private Equity Real Estate fund. BMF IV is targeting US$750 million in equity via its capital raise. A Hard Cap of US$1 billion is likely to be determined.

The Investment Manager for the underlying fund is Bridge Investment Group LLC. Bridge is a specialist US real estate funds manager with over US$15 billion in assets under management. Bridge is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, with offices in New York, San Francisco and Orlando. Over the last 24 years Bridge has invested, managed and sold several billion dollars of property assets across all segments of the market. Bridge has a strong operating and property management platform, comprising over 1,000 management, leasing and facilities employees across the 30 states in which assets are owned.

BMF IV will essentially create stabilised multifamily investments for passive, ‘buy & hold’, often institutional, investors to acquire via a competitive process, either individually or as part of a portfolio. BMF IV will be a ‘manufacturer’ of institutional grade assets, on a ‘buy, fix & sell’ basis in order to identify, unlock and return added value to investors. Typically (as the following case Study shows) the strategy will be executed by acquiring a 1980s or 1990s vintage B-grade, suburban garden style asset, which is tired and under ammenitised, and is therefore leased at rentals below the current market for fresher product with better ammenities.

Bridge will implement a business plan which will involve a capital expenditure program to refresh and ammenitise the asset, and then drive a new leasing and renewal strategy at the higher market rents now unlocked as a result of the repositioning of the asset within its market. When it has stabilised the asset (typically 93%+ occupancy at market) and added full value, Bridge will then seek to sell the asset via a competitive process

BMF IV may also develop new assets (5-10% of the portfolio).

The targeted IRR on invested capital for BMF IV is 12-14% net (USD denominated).

HOW THE FUND INVESTS

The Fund will commit, as a single Limited Partner, capital into the underlying fund progressively during the capital raising period, which is expected to run through until the end of Q3 2019. By doing so, the Fund will acquire a proportionate interest in the underlying funds’ assets, at the original cost of those investments. The Fund will also pay an equalisation premium (estimated at between 2-4%), which is paid to earlier Limited Partners to compensate them for their dilution in the current portfolio.

The underlying fund, BMF IV, will continue to raise committed capital during its capital raising period, which will run between 12 and 18 months from its first close, depending upon if and when BMF IV reaches its target or hard cap. The underlying fund will also continue to invest committed equity during its 3 year (from first close) Investment Period. Following the Investment Period, the underlying fund will have a Harvest Period of up to 5 years*, during which time it will sell assets which have completed their value-add plan, and are thus considered stabilised. During the Investment Period rental income will be distributed to investors on a six-monthly basis as at 30 June and 31 December. During the Harvest Period, income from rentals and profits from sale, together with original capital, will be distributed to investors on the same six-monthly basis.

* The Harvest Period contains a 1+1 year extension provision which may be exercised at the discretion of the Investment Manager.

THE INITIAL PORTFOLIO (AS AT DECEMBER 2018)

BMF IV currently has 16 value-add multifamily assets already acquired or under contract at a total purchase price of approximately US$916 million. These are summarised below. If the targeted equity raise of US$750 – $1,0000 million is achieved, then Spire would expect a total portfolio size of 50 – 60 assets with a total purchase price of circa US$2.5 billion.

The Zenith Investment Partners (“Zenith”) Australian Financial Services License No. 226872 rating (assigned 16 May 2019) referred to in this document is limited to “General Advice” (as defined by the Corporations Act 2001) for Wholesale clients only. This advice has been prepared without taking into account the objectives, financial situation or needs of any individual. It is not a specific recommendation to purchase, sell or hold the relevant product(s). Investors should seek independent financial advice before making an investment decision and should consider the appropriateness of this advice in light of their own objectives, financial situation and needs. Investors should obtain a copy of, and consider the PDS or offer document before making any decision and refer to the full Zenith Product Assessment available on the Zenith website. Zenith usually charges the product issuer, fund manager or a related party to conduct Product Assessments. Full details regarding Zenith’s methodology, ratings definitions and regulatory compliance are available on our Product Assessment’s and at http://www.zenithpartners. com.au/ RegulatoryGuidelines.

Ordinary units

Performance as at 31 January 2024 Net Returns*
1 month3.65%
3 months-3.62%
6 months1.10%
1 year0.71%
Since inception p.a.*11.16%

*Since inception performance is measured as the Internal Rate of Return since inception. The IRR is the annualised rate of return that equates the amount and timing of irregular cashflows since inception with the period end value. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance. Performance table is based on the aggregated total application amount and units issued during the capital raising period and includes Unit Price growth from commencement of NAV based unit pricing following completion of capital raising in June 2019. Unit Price and performance do not include the value of Foreign Income Tax Offsets (FITOs) which have been accrued. Individual investor performance will vary according to the Issue Price at which they were issued Units in the Fund, which in turn was based upon the AUD / USD exchange rate applicable in the month in which an investment was made.

Date Unit Price Net Monthly Return*
31 January 2024$2.0458 3.65%

PDS/IM & Forms

Off Market Transfer Form
pdf
Change of Address & Communication Election Form
pdf
Letter of Authority Form
pdf

Research

Fact Sheet
pdf
Zenith Research Report
pdf
Spire Capital Master Fund Financial Report
pdf
PeriodDistribution Amount (cents per unit)EX priceDistribution Component
30 June 2023 Nil CPU Cash; Nil CPU FITOs $2.1037 SPIRE Distribution Components.CPU 2023 WEB
30 June 2022 10.7228 CPU Cash; 0.7188 CPU FITOs $2.0500 SPIRE Distribution Components.CPU 2022
31 December 2021 2.3755 CPU Cash $1.7602
30 June 2021 2.6495 CPU Cash $1.4277 SPIRE Distribution Components.CPU 2021
30 June 2020 0.2957 CPU Cash; 0.1425 CPU FITOs $1.4598 SPIRE Distribution Components.CPU 2020