The engine behind private equity giant Lone Star is stepping out into the limelight to offer its services to the market for the first time.
Hudson Advisors, the until now relatively unseen asset management arm of Lone Star, is gearing up to operate more independently by taking on segregated mandates from limited partners.
Lone Star will still be its primary client, but Hudson will now target non-competing core or core plus mandates of its own.
Hudson will take on the management of both existing portfolios owned by investors as well as invest cash pots allocated by LPs.
It will also look at raising co-mingled funds.
The change in direction will essentially diversify the exposure of John Grayken, the billionaire sole owner of both Lone Star and Hudson, away from purely opportunistic real estate.
A spokesman for Hudson said: “Over the years, Hudson has been asked on several occasions by investors in commercial real estate and other assets to provide them with asset management services, and we are pleased now to be able to welcome and consider such requests… We have taken the necessary steps to optimise our business structure to take on new clients, and we are looking forward to providing the benefits of our experienced global platform to them.”
Almost all of the property underpinned by Lone Star’s $70bn of capital under management worldwide is managed by Hudson.
Since Hudson was founded 22 years ago it has managed 964,000 assets with a total purchase price of $193bn.
The highly regarded firm is widely credited with doing much of the hard graft that has led to Lone Star’s success. Its sole role has been to sweat the assets that Lone Star buys and take them to a point of exit for maximum returns.
The new strategy is being led by Hudson’s new global chief executive, Nick Beevers who has transferred to the role from president of North America at Lone Star. In Europe Hudson is led by Philippe Couturier.
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