Aerience Investments SA has launched a £100 million (€120 million) closed-end specialist debt fund, OREL. The fund will focus on providing bridge loans for London residential property transactions. Aerience plans to grow the unleveraged fund to approximately £200 million (€240 million) and is targeting UK and international investors.

“The UK residential real estate lending market is still characterised by a dislocation that has been created by a significant lack of liquidity from financial institutions,” says Daniel Bendavid, senior investment officer at Aeriance Investments. “We anticipate that this environment will continue for the foreseeable future as new lending volumes from banks will probably remain expensive and severely limited, driven by new capital adequacy rules.”

The fund will focus on high-end residential properties, generally providing two to three years of financing to expe