Doing Things Differently: Omar Jackson, Partner at Berkeley Assets

With a diversified portfolio of investments across sectors like real estate, hospitality, logistics, and technology, Berkeley Assets currently operates over 150 businesses across multiple industries, with its offices spread across Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. “We like to see ourselves as a low-risk Private Equity firm,” Omar Jackson says. “One of our unique points is that everything is tangible so, what we work with are asset-backed businesses, tangible assets. We are looking at real estate as 80-85% of our portfolio, all in the UK and the US because those are notoriously two of the most stable and historically strong real estate markets in the world.”

This kind of reasoning governs Berkeley Asset’s forays into other sectors as well, wherein the company takes charge of all the assets under its purview, thereby ensuring its clientele’s peace of mind. “We, as a company, have a lot of security in terms of our charge over the assets,” he explains. “So, we are able to protect our clients’ money at all costs, at all times. And it’s great for the clients just to know that. Because if you’re doing everything through a fund, something you can’t physically see or touch, it becomes a lot more difficult.

So that’s our framework, to offer clientele, retail or institutional, something physical, something tangible.” According to Jackson, this is the differentiating factor that makes Berkeley Assets stand out as a firm. “PE is very simple,” he says. “You raise money on one side, and you invest it on the other side’.

Now, some PE firms go down the fund route; others go down direct placement. We’re direct placement, so a client knows his money comes in the door from one end, and it goes into projects on the other end. There are no fees; it’s a simple arrangement, they can come in for two years, five years, or 10 years, we give them a fixed rate of interest on their loan to us. So that could be 4%, 6%, or 8% per annum. They can get paid that interest bi-annually, and we do that in order so that clients can physically see the rewards of their investment, not just see it on paper. It’s physical, it’s real. That’s the whole concept of Berkeley Assets; it’s tangible.”

Omar Jackson is a partner at private equity firm Berkeley Assets which has headquarters in British Virgin Islands, Dubai and London. Berkeley Assets is a multi-asset company with a strong, diversified portfolio of investments across the real estate, hospitality, logistics and technologies sectors