Ex-M7 Head Sets Up Third Business With £720M Martley
By Mike Phillips – 9th January 2024
An investor who has set up two real estate investment management businesses and sold them at the top of the market is back for a third go-round.
Richard Croft has formally launched a new company, Martley Capital, with £720M of assets under management and 40 staff across Europe, according to a LinkedIn post.
Some of the assets were inherited from his previous business, M7 Real Estate, but Martley also plans to deploy new strategies aimed at investing in opportunities created by dislocation in the market brought on by high interest rates.
Martley will also look to provide “plug-and-play” technology and services for small asset managers on a fee basis.
Croft set up M7 in 2009 and sold it to Oxford Properties in 2021, at which point it had assets under management of €4.3B (£3.7B). The business specialised in light industrial assets, regional offices and retail warehousing.
Prior to that, he founded fund manager Halverton, which he sold to Australian firm GPT in the summer of 2007.
Martley is managing two large assets previously listed on the now-defunct IPSX marketplace, which allowed investors to buy shares in individual assets. Those assets included the Mailbox mixed-use scheme in Birmingham and the Bridgewater Place office scheme in Leeds. The Mailbox has faced issues regarding loan covenants.
Martley also manages the TREC II debt fund and has a loan-servicing business called Iken as well as separate account mandates. Those include Gap Financing Series I, which it said recently provided a three-year, £32.25M mezzanine loan to refinance a portfolio of five UK retail warehouse assets owned by Tristan Capital Partners and is “continuously reviewing further opportunities” to provide capital to owners facing loan-to-value issues or needing to refinance.
Other investment strategies include regional offices that can be converted to flexible office assets.
Croft is joined at Martley by M7 alumni, including Chief Financial and Chief Operating Officer Alison Lambert and Executive Managing Director Jack Thoms.
To read the original Bisnow news article click here.
