Dolphin Capital Partners, a firm run by one of the founders of George Soros’s real estate private equity team, is set to launch an Aim-listed €105m (£72m) fund to invest in Mediterranean property development.
The fund will be managed by Mitos Kambourides, a former partner of Soros Real Estate Partners (SREP), a global private equity business set up in 1999.
SREP was best known in the UK as a founder of Mapeley.
That was the property outsourcing company that bought the Inland Revenue’s estate.
The other founder of Mapeley, now a listed company, was Fortress, the US private equity group.
Fortress’s partners have provided more than half of the €5m seed capital for the new Dolphin fund.
The new venture, called Dolphin Capital Investors, is the latest in a string of recent Aim-listed property vehicles focused on mainland Europe.
It has been set up to invest in residential resorts, mainly in Greece, Cyprus, Turkey and Croatia.
It is understood that the group aims to raise €100m from its flotation.
It is already close to completion on the purchase of six projects for more than €70m, of which four are in Greece and two are in Cyprus.
The projects typically involve residential resorts with hundreds of homes and facilities such as golf courses, polo pitches and marinas.
All are being carried out with joint venture partners.
The group’s other founder is Pierre Charalambides, a former investment banker who worked previously at JP Morgan.
Dolphin’s broker is Panmure Gordon and it is being advised by Grant Thornton.
Mr Kambourides said south-east Europe was at least 10 years behind the Spanish tourism market and was set for huge growth.
The residential resort market was hugely undeveloped compared with elsewhere, he said.
The Dolphin fund does not have a specific duration but is likely to be wound up after three to five years.
The group, which is raising money from institutional investors, expects to float in mid-December.
It will be domiciled in the British Virgin Islands.