Pohlad-Owned Northmarq Takes the Reins at Thirdline Real Estate Income Fund

Founder Charles Hutchens stays on as portfolio manager after moving to the new adviser, while the fund enters the changeover on the heels of its first negative fiscal year.

September 18, 2026

Thirdline Real Estate Income Fund has a new investment adviser. Northmarq Fund Management, LLC, an Oregon-based firm owned through Northmarq Companies by the Pohlad family office, has replaced Thirdline Capital Management as adviser to the roughly $58 million interval fund, according to an amended prospectus and statement of additional information dated September 16, 2026.

The change puts a substantially larger owner behind a small, real estate-focused interval fund that has spent its first five years as a founder-led operation. Charles C. Hutchens, who owned Thirdline Capital Management from February 2021 until September 2026, has moved to Northmarq as senior director and portfolio manager and continues to run the fund day to day, a role he has held since its launch in 2021. He also remains the fund’s president, chief executive officer and secretary, and its sole interested trustee.

Northmarq Fund Management began operations in 2002, according to the prospectus, and is wholly owned by Northmarq Companies, LLC, which in turn is wholly owned by Pohlad Companies, LLC. The prospectus describes Pohlad Companies as a family office with holdings in commercial real estate, robotics and automation, consumer products, healthcare, energy, logistics and distribution, food and beverage, and sports and entertainment. The board’s basis for approving the new advisory agreement will be laid out in the fund’s semi-annual report for the period ending September 30, 2026.

Fee Terms Under the New Adviser

The advisory fee is set at 0.98% of average daily net assets, and Northmarq has entered into an expense limitation agreement that caps ordinary operating expenses at 1.50% of average daily net assets, with a three-year recoupment right for waived amounts. The agreement runs at least through July 31, 2027. Interest expense, acquired fund fees and any costs tied to directly held property sit outside the cap.

On the fee table, total annual expenses come to 2.89% of net assets, reduced to 2.36% after a 0.53% waiver. Beyond the advisory fee, the largest line items are:

• interest on borrowed funds, 0.84%;
• other expenses, 0.92%;
• shareholder servicing fees, 0.15%.

There is no sales load, but shares tendered within a year of purchase incur a 1.00% repurchase fee. The fund offers a single share class, TREIX, with a $5,000 minimum initial investment, and notes that it would need SEC exemptive relief before adding additional classes. For the fiscal years ended March 31, 2024, 2025 and 2026, Thirdline Capital Management earned advisory fees of $618,774, $633,426 and $619,792, respectively.

Board Reshuffle Accompanies the Handoff

The adviser change arrives alongside turnover on the fund’s board. Two independent trustees are listed as nominees with service beginning September 2026. Jill Guess, who retired in 2026, was most recently director of alternative investments at Apollon Wealth Management and earlier served as director of research at Prism Advisory Group from 2010 to 2022; she has been designated chair of the audit committee and its financial expert. Paulo Aguilar co-founded Wealthstone Group in 2024 and previously led fundraising at Revitate and, from 2017 to 2022, distributed Regulation D offerings, DST-1031 programs and REITs at Inland Securities Corporation.

Joseph W. McDonald, a partner and head of business development at private real estate credit firm Persevere Capital, continues as an independent trustee, having served since August 2021. Jack Hetzer, a senior associate who followed Hutchens from Thirdline Capital Management to Northmarq, serves as treasurer.

A Difficult Year Sets the Backdrop

The transition follows the fund’s weakest fiscal year to date. For the year ended March 31, 2026, net asset value per share declined to $9.11 from $9.89, and total return was negative 0.55%, the first full-year loss since the fund began operations on September 29, 2021. The preceding three fiscal years had each produced total returns between 6.26% and 6.48%.

Net investment income fell to $0.57 per share from $0.90 a year earlier, while realized and unrealized losses on investments totaled $0.61 per share. Distributions held at $0.74 per share for the year, but $0.56 of that was characterized as return of capital, with $0.14 from net investment income and $0.04 from realized gains. Return of capital has made up the majority of the fund’s distributions in every year of its existence.

Net assets ended the fiscal year at $58.5 million, down from $60.8 million a year earlier and $65.0 million at March 31, 2024. The fund also cut its leverage sharply, with total borrowings falling to $4.7 million from $10.2 million, pushing asset coverage per $1,000 of senior indebtedness to $13,345 from $6,967. Portfolio turnover for the year was zero.

Strategy Stays Anchored in Direct Real Estate

The prospectus does not signal a shift in mandate. The fund continues to target current income with low volatility and low correlation to public equity and bond markets, with moderate long-term capital appreciation as a secondary objective. At least 80% of assets go to real estate investments, a category that spans direct property interests and joint ventures, commercial real estate loans across the capital stack, private REITs and private real estate funds, and publicly traded real estate securities. The fund may also use options and short selling for hedging and income, and it is not constrained by credit quality or duration.

The fund is taxed as a REIT rather than as a regulated investment company, which brings REIT ownership limits and distribution requirements along with it. It maintains the standard interval-fund liquidity profile of quarterly repurchase offers for at least 5% of outstanding shares at NAV, with repurchases scheduled in February, May, August and November.

Borrowings are limited to one-third of total assets, and the fund can layer property-level mortgage debt on top of fund-level facilities. Illustrating the effect of leverage, the prospectus assumes a projected annual interest cost of 7.56% and shows that a flat portfolio return would translate to a negative 0.57% return to common shareholders after financing costs.

For advisors and allocators, the practical questions are whether the new ownership translates into better deal flow for a fund that has so far relied on a small team, and whether it brings distribution support to a vehicle whose net assets have sat between roughly $58 million and $65 million at every fiscal year-end since March 2023. The prospectus offers no answers on either front; the semi-annual report and the fund’s next rounds of repurchase and subscription activity will be the first indications.