Who We Are

Valara Capital is an aggregated investment vehicle which aligns the interests of our Cornerstone Investors with our co-investors. Valara aims to generate value by leveraging the deal flow, relationships and expertise of the Cornerstone Investors with the Fund’s Investment Providers to identify and execute suitable property finance investments. The Fund’s co-investors will contribute scale advantages to Valara’s investment strategy.

Valara is currently managing the Valara Partners Fund.
The objective of the Fund is to provide investors with strong, risk-adjusted returns by investing in a diversified portfolio of prop-erty finance transactions sourced and endorsed by a selection of Australia’s leading Investment Providers. The Fund aims to provide cash distributions to investors promptly on a semi-annual basis as deals mature.

The Investment Mandate of the Fund is property finance transactions, which includes the following:

FIRST MORTGAGE DEBT

Land and/or Construction loans

SECOND MORTGAGE DEBT

Land and/or Construction loans

TRANSACTIONS

Of a similar or related nature

INVESTMENT TEAM

YEHUDA GOTTLIEB

MANAGING DIRECTOR

Yehuda joined the Spotlight Group in 2015 as the General Manager of Investments. Prior to this Yehuda has spent more than a decade in the financial services industry holdings roles ranging across strategy consulting, investment banking, structured finance and investment management. Yehuda has specific property finance experience having spent a number of years at Wingate, a boutique finance and investment house, where his role included structuring, due diligence, risk management and execution of proprietary deals in the alternative asset space.
Yehuda holds a Bachelor of Commerce and Business Systems from Monash University, a Graduate Diploma of Applied Finance and is currently completing his MBA at Melbourne Business School.

Dean Berry

Chief Financial Officer

Dean joined the Spotlight Group in 1989 and is one of the longer serving employees of the business. Originally joining as the Property Accountant he then after a couple of years joined the Retail division as Finance Manager and ultimately CFO. During this time he was actively involved in the rapid expansion of Spotlight both domestically and internationally in Singapore, NZ and Hong Kong. He was also involved in the start up of the Anaconda Retail Chain and assisted with its rollout to over 30 stores. Dean sits on the SGH Board, Family Council Board, and Investment Board as well as chairing the Audit and Risk Committee, Superannuation Committee and Tax and Legal Committee. He is an FCPA member.

Benjamin Grosberg

Fund Accountant / Operations Manager

Benjamin joined the Spotlight Group in 2010 as an accountant and is now the Assistant Treasurer of the Group, responsible for all reporting, compliance and tax requirements of the investment division. In addition to this, Benjamin deals with the daily FX and cashflows of the Retail, Property and Investment divisions and is an active member of the Investment, Superannuation and Tax & Legal Committees. Previous to Spotlight, Benjamin was an Associate at GE Finance. Benjamin holds a Bachelor of Business from Monash University (majoring in Accounting & Finance), and is currently completing his certification as a Chartered Accountant.

CORNERSTONE INVESTORS

The Cornerstone Investors in the Valara Partners Fund are the Fried and Fraid families, the founders and sole shareholders of Spotlight Group Holdings (parent company of the Spotlight and Anaconda retail brands).
This group has developed and manages one of Australia’s largest pools of private property finance investments utilising a risk-first approach to assessing and approving investment opportunities.

The Cornerstone Investors have committed to contribute up to 49% with a floor commitment of 40% of the initial capital invested in the Fund. As a signal of their long term commitment to the Fund, the Cornerstone Investors have committed to maintain an investment of the lower of $20m or 40% of the capital managed by the Fund.