LaSalle plans 400 mln pound British property fund

SYDNEY, Nov 6 (Reuters) - LaSalle Investment Management is raising a 400 million pound ($632 million) fund to pick up bargain property in a British market where some assets are being sold at 20-30 percent discounts to their value, a company executive said on Thursday.

The fund management arm of Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL.N), which has $52.7 billion assets under management, is currently raising a handful of opportunistic funds globally.

Its planned LaSalle UK Ventures Fund II is scheduled to close in the first quarter of next year, and is aiming for 20 percent internal rates of return, said Paul Richards, LaSalle's head of global managed accounts.

The fund will boost its spending power with borrowing, limited to 75 percent of total assets, and will look for development opportunities as well as distressed assets.

"In the last two to three months, we've been seeing properties on the market where you think it's good value," Richards told Reuters in an interview.

"People who've got cash to invest, they should be quite happy at the moment." ($1=.6329 Pound)