KKR veteran Julia Butler has been named to the newly created role of chief investment officer of KKR Real Estate Select Trust (KREST), a $1.5 billion registered closed-end fund with REIT taxation that thematically invests in income-oriented commercial real estate equity and debt.
The new role makes Butler a dedicated member of KREST’s senior leadership team, overseeing investment management for the fund as it continues to scale its global portfolio of private real estate equity and credit investments.
“We have built KREST to provide individual investors access to the full breadth of KKR’s global real estate platform with a dynamic investment strategy designed to deliver attractive yield and long-term performance across different macroeconomic environments,” said Ralph Rosenberg, chairman of KREST and global head of KKR Real Estate. “We are committed to building a best-in-class management platform as KREST continues to scale. Julia is a senior leader of our real estate business with two decades of experience investing across the real estate capital structure as both an equity and credit investor.”
Butler has played an integral role in scaling KKR’s real estate business to over $65 billion in assets under management and will be a key contributor to the continued commercial success of KREST, Rosenberg added.
She joined KKR in 2017 and is a managing director on the real estate team. Before KKR, Butler was an executive vice president at iStar, a publicly traded REIT for which she was responsible for sourcing, managing and executing on new investment opportunities in the U.S. and Europe.
KREST aims to deliver stable, tax-efficient income and long-term appreciation in the private real estate asset class by focusing on three complementary strategy pillars: stabilized real estate, prime single tenant and real estate credit. As market conditions have evolved, KREST has sought to optimize its portfolio across high-quality, income-oriented real estate equity and credit exposures.
Billy Butcher, KREST CEO and Chief Operating Officer of KKR Global Real Estate, said: “We believe we are entering a once-a-decade real estate investing environment with the debt capital markets pullback creating potential attractive new investment opportunities for KREST. The addition of Julia to the team positions KREST ideally to take advantage of these opportunities to continue to deliver exceptional performance for our investors.”
Launched in 2020, KREST has had some strong gains in recent years including a 26% return in 2021. This year through April the portfolio, which is valued at $3.6 billion, is up 0.77%.
“I am thrilled to join the KREST leadership team and look forward to working with Ralph, Billy and my colleagues across KKR to position the Fund for continued success,” said Butler. “We see significant opportunities on the horizon for private real estate investors with a long-term outlook and expect 2023 to be a strong vintage for private real estate. I look forward to continuing to build on our thematic investing, rigorous portfolio management and investment discipline that leverages KKR’s global platform to deliver on further downside-protected growth.”
