Zoe Hughes

The firm has agreed to buy up to 148 properties from Sunwest, which filed a pre-packaged Chapter 11 reorganisation plan in August. The SEC sued Sunwest for fraud in March after it almost devolved into a Ponzi scheme.

The private equity and real estate investor has sold a Frankfurt data centre for $28m to data services firm Equinix. The technology centre was the final asset to be sold from a 25-building portfolio bought by GI in 2004. The firm made a 3.7x multiple on the deal.

The Chinese sovereign wealth fund has held talks with BlackRock, Invesco and Lone Star as it looks to the US real estate market and distressed mortgage securities, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The private equity platform has paid $116m cash and assumed $136.5m of a $182m mortgage for a controlling interest in a 1.4m sq. ft Colorado shopping centre. Macerich has been a net seller of assets in 2009 to date.

In the year to the end of June, Virginia Retirement System’s real estate portfolio returned -28.3% compared to a 19.8% benchmark. The pension has lost $12.2bn in value in 12 months.

The Los Angeles-based firm reportedly said it was looking to merge Japan Rental Housing Investments with other J-REITs. Oaktree said the industry was ripe for “consolidation", according to media reports.

A Capmark bankruptcy could lead to one of the biggest private equity losses ever. KKR, Five Mile Partners and Goldman Sachs invested $2.1bn in equity in the company in 2006.

The sovereign wealth fund is reportedly planning to increase its stake in Songbird Estates to almost 30%.

The two real estate fund managers are turning to the public markets to raise capital for their next debt vehicles. Brookfield Realty Capital Corp. and Marathon Real Estate Mortgage Trust are targeting $500m and $300m respectively.

The $123.8bn California pension plan took a 50% write-down in its value-added/opportunistic real estate investments in the year to 31 March 2009. The pension has completely written off its equity in some funds, while others are currently reporting IRRs of more than -100%.