Millenium Partners raises $327 million in new capital.

Millennium Partners, an international real estate development firm, has bolstered its funding for future projects with $327 million in new capital raised from key financial sources, doubling its capital base.

Financing has been secured by a consortium of German financial institutions led by ERGO Versicherungs Gruppe AG ($150 million); as well as Goldman Sachs' Whitehall Fund ($75 million); financier George Soros and his Quantum Really Fund Limited ($75 million); and Citicorp Real Estate N.A. ($27 million). This infusion of new capital enables Millennium Partners to complete its nearly $2 billion worth of real estate currently under construction.

Millennium Partners, the New York-based firm that pioneered the urban entertainment and living center, is best known for the development of New York City's acclaimed Lincoln square, built at a total cost of approximately $500 million. Most recently, Millennium has broken ground on major mixed-use projects in San Francisco, Boston, Washington, D.C. and New York, with such amenities as 5-star hotels, including Four Seasons and Ritz-Carlton; luxury condominiums; Reebok Sports Club fitness and spa facilities; entertainment centers; and flagship retail space.

"Our continuing goal is to anticipate and respond to unique real estate opportunities with cutting edge concepts in quality developments," said Christopher M. Jeffries, president and founding principal of Millennium Partners. "The capitalization of Millennium Partners LLC is unusual in the development business and will allow us to continue to execute our ambitious agenda of projects of a major scale over the next several years across the country."

The consortium of German insurance companies was assembled by TMW, a Munich-based advisory firm that first began working with the principals of Millennium in 1991. The consortium controls assets worth over $100 billion and is led by Victoria Versicherungen, a member of ERGO Versicherungs Gruppe AG, a Dusseldorf-based insurance company and includes Provinzial-Versicherungsanstalten, Colonia Nordstem Immobilien AG and Wuerttembergische Versicherangsgruppe.

"Their tremendous ability to leverage co-branding corporate relationships with such names as Sony, Reebok, The Four Seasons and Ritz-Carlton has enabled Millennium Partners to redefine a new generation of mixed-use urban developments," said Daniel Neidich, managing director of Goldman Sachs' Whitehall Fund.

The Whitehall Funds are a series of real estate opportunistic funds managed by Goldman, Sachs & Co. that over the past seven years have collectively acquired assets with a gross purchase price of over $26 billion.

"Millennium Partners is composed of a visionary and highly ambitious group of individuals that respond to the changing demands of today's consumers in their unique approach to real estate development," said Robert Soros of Soros Fund Management LLC. "The key to their success is their ability to position themselves at the forefront of cycles nationwide."

Soros Fund Management LLC is a private investment management firm that serves as principal investment advisor to the Quantum Group of Funds, a group of investment funds headquartered in the Netherlands Antilles that are not open to U.S. investors. The investment with Millennium will be made both by an affiliate of Quantum Realty Fund Limited, a fund formed in 1993 to invest in real estate, and by Soros family entities.

For each of its projects, Millennium Partners has relied on a combination of sound financial partners, conservative debt-to-equity capital structure, major corporate tenants committed to flagship presence, participation in tenant businesses, and a consistently superior level of quality.