Puerto Rico-based investor Grupo Ferré Rangel has launched real estate investment platform Kingbird Properties to invest in value-add real estate opportunities in secondary US markets and in Latin America. The wholly owned subsidiary of Grupo Ferré Rangel consolidates the firm's real estate investments under one entity. Kenneth A. Munkacy will serve as Senior Managing Director of the new company, while Grupo Ferrè CEO Antonio Luis Ferré Rangel will serve as the CEO and chairman of Kingbird. The firm announced its launch at the Urban Land Institutes Fall Meeting this week in Los Angeles.

“In the US, we will be focusing on secondary and tertiary markets, or what I call markets that don't appeal to institutional investors as much,” Munkacy tells GlobeSt.com. “We are looking at low- to mid-rise structures that are 150 to 400 units, and we would like opportunities to enhance rents through capital improvement programs. We are targeting local partners to do project management, leasing and capital improvement capabilities that have a track record in turning around under performing or troubled projects and that are hands on. We are not going to be a vertically integrated company.”

Grupo Ferré Rangel is primarily a media company, but has invested in real estate periodically as part of diversifying its holdings. “They came to appreciate real estate's growth opportunities, the yields and the risk-reward profile,” says Munkacy. “They analyzed real estate as a way to diversify their portfolio holdings, and they concluded that it is worth consolidating everything under a new entity, which is Kingbird.”