NEW YORK CITY—Morgan Stanley's Alternative Investment Partners platform has closed on more than $500 million in commitments to its AIP Phoenix Global Real Estate Secondaries Fund II and other real estate fund of funds separate accounts. Phoenix II will focus primarily on acquiring secondary interests in private equity real estate funds and making co-investments alongside fund managers.

Launched in 2013, the fund drew commitments from global pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies and high net worth individuals. Citing “a disciplined investment strategy and process that aims to deliver strong, consistent performance through real estate cycles,” David Boyle, CIO and co-head of AIP Real Estate, says the key to this approach has been “our ability to partner with what we believe are leading small- to mid-sized fund managers around the world—groups that we believe have a competitive edge in their local market and are able to generate returns through fundamental analysis.”

The AIP Real Estate group is based in New York Cty, London and Hong Kong. PERE reported earlier this week that its recent ventures have included a 50/50 co-investment in Japan alongside the Redwood Group, an Asia-focused logistics fund manager. The deal marked AIP Real Estate's entry into the Japanese real estate market.

Earlier, AIP Real Estate and Redwood partnered on another co-investment, acquiring a 388,000-square-foot facility for Daimler Northeast Asia Parts Trading and Services in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou. The total deal size ranged between $50 million and $100 million, PERE reported.

Part of Morgan Stanley Investment Management, the AIP platform specializes in assisting institutional and high net worth investors in reaching their goals through the design and management of alternative investment programs. AIP was founded in 2000 and has approximately $37.2 billion in assets under management and advisement worldwide.