Nearly five years after launching its first funds with exposure to the US real estate market, Canuma Capital is once again structuring a vehicle focused on the American market, with an emphasis on private mortgage lending.
The asset management firm of Marcelo Vainstein , former CIO of Brookfield , which has BTG Pactual as a minority partner, announced on Thursday, April 23, the completion of a fundraising round of R$ 89.7 million for the Canuma Capital US Real Estate Private Credit FIM IE fund.
The fund, aimed at high-net-worth and wealth management clients, will invest in credit operations for residential assets considered more defensive, such as multifamily and retirement homes.
Speaking to NeoFeed , Vainstein says the vehicle was designed to meet investor demand for more investment options in the American real estate market, since most products involve equity exposure—such as asset development and retrofitting —structures that involve higher execution risk and longer timeframes.
"Talking to our clients, we received a demand for this type of product because people want to diversify, to also have the option of credit in the American market, and not just stay in the Brazilian market," he says.
The fund intends to operate in the credit layer of the capital structure, prioritizing transactions with real estate guarantees and shorter terms, between 12 and 36 months. The target portfolio includes more than 50 transactions, with an average loan-to- value (LTV) ratio of around 65%.
The origination of the transactions is done in partnership with local players. "We started shaping this product two years ago because we needed to carefully select the private lenders ," says Vainstein.
The goal is to deliver between 15% and 17% annual return. Although the assets are denominated in US dollars, the fund seeks to deliver fixed returns in Brazilian reais, without currency exposure, by exploiting the interest rate differential between Brazil and the United States through hedging structures.
According to Vainstein, this format was decided in conversations with clients, with the majority requesting a fixed-rate fund to take advantage of the potential for falling interest rates, where a large spread can be achieved between the fixed rate and the yield curve.
This is Canuma's second international fund. The asset manager also has a US REITs fund, focused on investing in shares of US real estate companies, known as REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts), with net assets totaling R$ 24.8 million. The firm also has a vehicle with the same strategy as the US REITs, but with protection against currency fluctuations between the dollar and the Brazilian real.
With US Private Credit, Canuma's global strategy now represents approximately 17.5% of its R$950 million in assets under management. Vainstein says that Canuma wants to expand its operations in the United States, stating that it has several funds similar to US Credit in mind, but that, in the short term, the idea is to demonstrate results to convince investors. The asset manager plans a new vehicle in the same format for this year, but with a single investor.
He points out that the private mortgage market in the United States is worth around US$5 trillion. Within this universe, the so-called middle market , Canuma's focus, represents approximately US$700 billion.
Despite the turbulence in the American economy , Vainstein says the situation is not worrying and that it is possible to access less competitive opportunities with greater potential for risk-adjusted returns.
“All the macroeconomic numbers from the last three months show that the economy is still resilient,” says Vainstein. “There was even a slowdown in the residential real estate market, due to interest rates, but so far we don’t see any signs of a significant slowdown. We don’t see any signs to be worried about the American economy.”
