A property company focused on buying development land has commitments of €40 million for its second round of fund raising, which has set a target of €75 million.

Ardawn Developments, which is headed by former PricewaterhouseCoopers partner Pat Shine, this week launched its second round of fund raising.

It aims to raise up to €75 million, but Mr Shine told The Irish Times yesterday that it had already won commitments of about €40 million from potential investors.

Mr Shine said the company was confident that the new fund would meet its €75 million target. It closes in the last week of February.

Last year, the firm raised €56 million from investors, and backed that up with a similar amount in bank borrowings.

Ardawn focuses on buying land in the east Leinster area that is zoned for residential development. It then intends getting planning permission and selling the property on to builders.

According to Mr Shine, Ardawn used the money raised last year to buy 13 sites in the Dublin hinterland, mainly in Wicklow and Kildare.

The company invested the total raised, which was close to €120 million, inside six months.

It has been seeking planning permission for the sites, and expects this to come through for one of them relatively soon.

"The others could typically take two to three years, it's a long process," Mr Shine said.

Taking the same approach as last year by supporting the investment with the same amount in borrowings, the second Ardawn fund should raise in the region of €150 million.

Mr Shine's company, Cova, manages the investments on behalf of Ardawn.

It will also be the biggest investor in the fund, taking somewhere between €4 million and €5 million of the total.

"The other investors like to see you taking some of the risk," he explained.

"Not that it is a huge risk, as we're buying land."

The idea of the fund is to open up property development to people with money to invest, but who do not have the resources to get into property development.

"A lot of our investors are people who have €250,000 or half a million to invest, and otherwise would be looking to buy an apartment, but instead have the opportunity to pool their resources under our management," he explained.

"They are high to middle earners with money to invest, but who can't get into property development because the developers are basically a closed shop of big companies."

The individual investments vary in size. Some people are investing between €250,000 and €1 million, but Mr Shine said approximately 40 backers had invested €1 million between them.

Typically his backers include professionals such as solicitors and accountants, or people who have sold businesses and want to invest some of the proceeds.