In Law360 Q&A, Matt Posthuma and Zakk Wedemeyer Discuss Fundraising Environment

In The News
November 9, 2023

In a Law360 Q&A, asset management partner Matt Posthuma and asset management counsel Zakk Wedemeyer spoke to the current fundraising market on the heels of leading the Ropes & Gray team that helped to close Longpoint’s third institutional fund at $940M.

Matt told Law360 that “fundraising for real estate private equity has been slower this year. I think a lot of it has been due to a lack of credit. A lot of the bank lending has dried up, and also a lot of itis due to uncertainty as to valuations.”

“I think one of the differentiating factors that Longpoint brings to the table is that they have broad, deep experience in the sector. They have a lot of knowledge about industrial assets, and their performance for their prior funds has been very good. So they were able to position themselves in a very favorable manner in this fundraising,” Zakk said.

On the acceleration of the industrial asset class, Matt said, “as e-commerce has become more popular, there just continues to be a great demand for industrial assets. I like to talk about the flavors of industrial: whether it's existing infill locations, like what Longpoint invests in, or larger, regional distribution centers that are usually built on the outskirts of metropolitan areas and are often ground-up development. Cold storage, to the extent you have refrigerated food, perishables. Data centers, another sign of the popularity of e-commerce in the cloud. I've seen people talk about open-air storage. Self-storage is very popular. All these different flavors of industrial have become more popular.”