BrickVest, a London-based online real estate investment platform for sophisticated individual investors, has launched Harvest Investment 8 (HV8), the latest in its range of thematic strategy Alternative Investment Funds (AIF) and the first to offer investors exposure to the U.S. market.
HV8 focuses on U.S. trophy asset real estate strategies and has been launched in response to increased demand from European investors. This trend was revealed in BrickVest’s latest commercial property investment barometer, conducted among 5,000 respondents in second quarter 2018. The survey showed that over a fifth (22 percent) of investors cited the United States as their preferred location for real estate exposure.
The fund’s first selected asset is the $134.4 million Hilton Hotel located on Chicago’s iconic Navy Pier. The opportunity derives from BrickVest’s established partnership with ACRON AG, a leading Swiss-based real estate asset manager with a transaction volume of approximately CH1.7 billion ($1.7 billion).
The 222-room hotel is currently under construction and due to open in the summer of 2019. It will boast America’s largest rooftop bar and restaurant measuring 30,000 square feet and is the only hotel to be built on the Navy Pier, Chicago’s top landmark, which attracts over 9 million tourists a year.
HV8 will be distributed through AIFM liquidity platform, BrickVest Access. It marks the second partnership with ACRON.
In June 2018 BrickVest held the first closing of Harvest Investment 5 (HV5), a BrickVest-managed real estate AIF with an income-producing strategy developed in partnership with the Swiss sponsor.