Blackstone Veteran's Town Lane Closes $1.9bn Real Estate Fund
Town Lane's second opportunistic real estate fund beat its $1.5bn target by more than 25% despite weak investor appetite for property this year.
Town Lane, a boutique investment firm founded by a 19-year Blackstone veteran, has secured $1.9bn in commitments for its second fund. That is more than 25% above the $1.5bn goal it set when it began raising the Real Estate Opportunities Fund II in May. The firm announced the close on Monday.
Investors include university endowments, charitable foundations and pension funds. The raise came in a year of muted investor interest in real estate, which has pushed fundraising to historic lows.
"We are fortunate to be playing offense with fresh capital at a time of increasing market dislocation," said Tyler Henritze, who founded the firm. He described a nimble team, a flexible mandate and ample capital as an advantage for pursuing larger opportunities.
Fund II can invest across opportunistic commercial property sectors and capital structures in the US. Town Lane's first fund raised $1.25bn against a $1bn target. According to the firm's press release, it has focused on themes with durable supply and demand, including senior housing, retail, small-format industrial and powered-shell data centres. In 2024 it bought land in North Carolina through a joint venture with PowerHouse Data Centers for a 2.5m sq ft data centre campus.
Founders' background
Henritze led Blackstone's real estate acquisitions in the Americas before leaving in mid-2023. He co-founded Town Lane in 2024 with his sister, Parker Morse, who spent more than a decade at Sycamore Partners. At Blackstone he played key roles in the $26bn Hilton Worldwide purchase, which later went public and netted the firm $14bn, its most profitable sale ever. He also co-led the $10bn acquisition of QTS Realty Trust, which gave Blackstone exposure to 7m sq ft of data centres.
Henritze told Bloomberg that having no older assets to sell gives the firm an edge. "Not having any legacy assets allows us to really be focused on playing offense today," he said.
Source: Bisnow