A site plan approved with the project last year. (Eagle)
Fresh off the successful flip of the former Circuit City headquarters in Henrico, a real estate-hungry local private-equity firm has a new eight-figure war chest to put into play.
Markel | Eagle Partners last month closed out its latest pooled fund, hauling in $33 million from around 50 investors.
Principal Ricky Core said the fund – the firm’s fourth and dubbed Markel-Eagle Fund IV -exceeded its target of $25 million. It began raising money for the fund last summer and closed it out at year’s end, requiring a minimum of $250,000 per investor.
“It was a good mix of our existing investors and first-time investors,” Core said, adding that this latest fund received a boost from Markel | Eagle President Bryan Kornblau and Markel Ventures, the investment arm of local insurance giant Markel Corp. that owns half of the private-equity firm.
The firm has raised a total of nearly $150 million in four funds since 2010.
As it did with its previous three funds, Markel | Eagle will put the new money to work on new real estate developments around the Richmond market and Central Virginia.
That includes a 150-home development on a 52-acre parcel in Ashland, as well as the fourth section of Parkside Village, an age-restricted single-family home community in Goochland.
Markel | Eagle invests its funds strictly in real estate projects – typically large commercial or residential developments.
Its first fund was a $32.7 million pool closed in late 2010 to invest in and help bail out West Broad Village, which at the time was struggling under the weight of the recession and real estate downturn.
Its Fund II topped out at $53 million in late 2012 and was deployed on projects that included the massive GreenGate mixed-use development in Short Pump, residential developments around Henrico County and a large mixed-use venture in Northern Virginia.
A third fund raised $29 million in late 2015 and was put to work partly in a mixed-use project in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Markel | Eagle was founded originally as E | Class MB Partners and was part of the Eagle Cos., which included Eagle Construction of Virginia.
In 2010, Henrico-based insurer Markel, through its investment arm, acquired a 50 percent interest in the private-equity firm, before acquiring Eagle Construction and its affiliates.
In addition to closing out the new fund, Markel | Eagle also recently marked the successful sale of one of its earlier investments – the $56 million deal for Deep Run III on the former Circuit City headquarters campus.
A site plan approved with the project last year. (Eagle)
Fresh off the successful flip of the former Circuit City headquarters in Henrico, a real estate-hungry local private-equity firm has a new eight-figure war chest to put into play.
Markel | Eagle Partners last month closed out its latest pooled fund, hauling in $33 million from around 50 investors.
Principal Ricky Core said the fund – the firm’s fourth and dubbed Markel-Eagle Fund IV -exceeded its target of $25 million. It began raising money for the fund last summer and closed it out at year’s end, requiring a minimum of $250,000 per investor.
“It was a good mix of our existing investors and first-time investors,” Core said, adding that this latest fund received a boost from Markel | Eagle President Bryan Kornblau and Markel Ventures, the investment arm of local insurance giant Markel Corp. that owns half of the private-equity firm.
The firm has raised a total of nearly $150 million in four funds since 2010.
As it did with its previous three funds, Markel | Eagle will put the new money to work on new real estate developments around the Richmond market and Central Virginia.
That includes a 150-home development on a 52-acre parcel in Ashland, as well as the fourth section of Parkside Village, an age-restricted single-family home community in Goochland.
Markel | Eagle invests its funds strictly in real estate projects – typically large commercial or residential developments.
Its first fund was a $32.7 million pool closed in late 2010 to invest in and help bail out West Broad Village, which at the time was struggling under the weight of the recession and real estate downturn.
Its Fund II topped out at $53 million in late 2012 and was deployed on projects that included the massive GreenGate mixed-use development in Short Pump, residential developments around Henrico County and a large mixed-use venture in Northern Virginia.
A third fund raised $29 million in late 2015 and was put to work partly in a mixed-use project in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Markel | Eagle was founded originally as E | Class MB Partners and was part of the Eagle Cos., which included Eagle Construction of Virginia.
In 2010, Henrico-based insurer Markel, through its investment arm, acquired a 50 percent interest in the private-equity firm, before acquiring Eagle Construction and its affiliates.
In addition to closing out the new fund, Markel | Eagle also recently marked the successful sale of one of its earlier investments – the $56 million deal for Deep Run III on the former Circuit City headquarters campus.
The purchase of the vacated Deep Run office buildings had to be one of the great strokes of real estate genius in Richmond history. But this group has had several others that qualify. One that sticks in my mind is when Brian Kornblau sold his residential lot portfolio in 2008 just prior to the Great Recession. Perhaps its a sign of continued good times that the fund is re-upping their lot numbers this late in the recovery.