David Rubenstein-Backed Venture Raises $240M

Carlyle’s David Rubenstein (Carlyle)

A venture backed by billionaire Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein raised nearly a quarter of a million dollars to pursue United States property bets.

Investment firm Declaration Partners announced it has raised $240 million, the New York company’s first fund using outside cash, Bloomberg reported. The fund is targeting multifamily and industrial properties across the country.

Roughly half of the capital has already been committed to investments across the country, including in Charlotte, Pittsburgh and California.

In addition to backing the company, Rubenstein was one of the uber-wealthy who invested in the real estate vehicle.

About 40 investors from the Middle East, Latin America and the United States contributed to the 10-year fund, which has options for holding period extensions. The fund’s investors are largely rich individuals and family offices.

The multifamily and industrial sectors have been hot throughout the pandemic. There have been signs the industrial real estate boom is coming to an end — Amazon earlier this year pulled back on its industrial dealings — but warehouse and logistics space is still at a premium across the country.

Rubenstein is estimated to be worth $3.8 billion. In 2017, his family office provided the anchor investment for Declaration, which relied on that money and capital from other individuals before launching its first fund. The firm has $2.5 billion of assets under management and 20 employees, about half in real estate.

Last year, Declaration teamed up with Blumenfeld Development Group and CH Realty Partners for a $57.5 million purchase of a 333,000-square-foot warehouse in California’s Inland Empire. Rockefeller Group sold the newly built industrial property in Perris.

In 2020, Declaration was part of a consortium that lent $388.5 million to Savanna to close its $435 million purchase of 1375 Broadway from Westbrook Partners.

— Holden Walter-Warner