Och-Ziff looks to raise $2B private equity fund targeting real estate

Billionaire Dan Och’s hedge fund is looking to raise a $2 billion real estate fund, its largest investment vehicle targeting real estate yet.

Och-Ziff Capital Management Group is seeking a $2 billion raise for its fourth fund targeting opportunistic investments as soon as the end of this year, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.

Real estate has been a relative bright spot for Och-Ziff, which is trying to regain confidence from investors after the company settled a bribery investigation with regulators in 2016.

“In the foreseeable future, we think we’re extremely good in credit and in real estate,” company CEO Robert Shafir said on a conference call with investors last month. “What you will see is extensions that are logical adjacencies to those core businesses.”

Och-Ziff’s two most recent real estate funds generated net internal rates of return of 23.5 percent and 21.8 percent from the time they started through June 30, regulatory filings show.

The company, which is headquartered in New York City at the Solow Building, is also looking to raise a $750 million real estate debt fund and $150 million for an affordable-housing investment vehicle.

Private equity companies are still looking to raise record amounts of capital, even as spending is seeing its sharpest decline in years.

Blackstone Group is looking to raise an $18 billion fund, its largest fund to date. [Bloomberg] – Rich Bockmann