US private equity group Blackstone is launching King's Street Retail, a fund investing in Polish retail assets.

The new platform, which will be officially launched at this year's Mapic exhibition in Cannes, will be seeded with a portfolio of three high-quality shopping centres and will target well-located Polish shopping malls with a strong mix of diversified tenants, generating high footfall and exhibiting further growth potential.

Blackstone will be responsible for asset management of each asset. The investment firm has mandated Master Management Group to provide transaction advisory services, property management, as well as leasing services to the properties of King's Street Retail.

'With positive underlying economic fundamentals, Blackstone sees further growth potential in the Polish retail market,' said Paul Heller, principal at Blackstone.

King's Street Retail currently includes three malls with over 130,000 m2 of retail space - Magnolia Park in Wroclaw, Galeria Twierdza in Klodzko and Galeria Twierdza in Zamoeæ.

Galeria Têcza - which opened last week in Kalisz - is to be acquired by Blackstone by the end of 2011, and will be added to King's Street Retail portfolio.