Low-carbon UK property fund raises 69 mln pounds

LONDON (Reuters) - A low-carbon British property fund has raised 69 million pounds ($107.5 million), the fund's managers said on Monday, as media reported that investors pumped a record amount into the UK property sector last quarter.

The Climate Change Property Fund (CCPF), run by low carbon asset managers Climate Change Capital, is already 40 percent invested in buildings in Birmingham and Edinburgh, the company said, adding it was considering investment in other major UK cities.

The CCPF, launched in August 2008, invests in retail and office space in major cities with an emphasis on retrofitting the existing buildings to make them more energy-efficient.

Climate Change Capital, which manages some $1.5 billion in assets, said the CCPF's investors were in Britain, continental Europe and Australia.

Pension funds and other institutional investors committed the most money to the British commercial property sector on record in Q4 2009, the Financial Times reported on Monday.

Citing official data from the Association of Real Estate Funds, it said institutional property funds raised more than 3.2 billion pounds last quarter, dwarfing the previous peak of 1.7 billion pounds collected in 2006.

(Reporting by Michael Szabo; Editing by Amanda Cooper)