Stafford Capital Partners, the global alternatives fund-of-funds manager and advisor, which took majority control of Australia’s Quay Partners in 2012 and bought three alternatives trusts from Macquarie Bank last year, has closed its seventh timberland fund 21 per cent oversubscribed.
The Stafford International Timberland VII Fund raised US$484 million (A$630 million) compared with a target of US$400 million, from investors in Australia, Europe and the US. About 20 per cent of the raising has already been committed with two secondary investments, a co-investment and a primary commitment from the last tranche.
Australian investors account for about 40 per cent of Stafford’s US$4.5 billion under management and advice, although Daan Oranje, a Sydney-based partner, says that the proportion of Australian-sourced assets in new raisings has declined recently because of stronger growth in new clients from the UK and Europe and because some Australian investors are preferring co-investment opportunities with the firm.
The latest capital raising supports the view of timberland and other real assets as an attractive hedge against possible US inflation and a provider of alternative yield versus sovereign bonds.
Quay Partners had about US$1 billion under management at the time that London-based Stafford took majority control in September 2012. Stafford is owned by its partners including the former chief executive of Pantheon, Richard Bowley, and the former head of Pantheon’s Asia Pacific business, Geoff Norman. Pantheon is an old venture and PE firm which was acquired by Russell Investments in 2004 and then by Affiliated Managers Group in 2010.
From about 2002, Stafford Timberland, a core part of Stafford Capital’s alternatives offering, developed a relationship with Australia’s Quay Partners, through a foundation Quay Partners non-executive director and shareholder Geoff Norman.
Quay Partners was started in 2000 by Sam Armstrong, who was head of alternatives at Macquarie Bank, and his colleague Stephen White, who ran Macquarie’s PE investments.
Armstrong split from White in 2005 and founded Barwon Investment Partners, with two other partners, a year later. Barwon also manages various funds-of-funds and provides advice to institutional investors. White has remained at Stafford and runs its private equity division in Australia.
Meanwhile, Stafford lifted its Australian presence in June last year with the purchase of the management of the three of Macquarie’s alternatives trusts, which had about A$700 million under management at the time.