Luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers Inc will launch an investment fund to buy up distressed real estate assets, including loan portfolios and land for development, the company said on Monday.

In a move that could take the company outside its core competency in homebuilding operations, Toll is forming Gibraltar Capital and Asset Management LLC, to be led by Toll veterans Roger Brush and Michael LaPat.

It said Brush has experience in distressed acquisitions, while LaPat has more than a decade of experience at Toll in mergers and acquisitions, due diligence, valuations and the structuring and financing of complex ventures.

The venture may also help banks and developers work out troubled real estate. Some investments may fall outside the company's core operations, Toll said.

We believe there are many potential investments arising from the distress in the real estate industry, Toll Chief Executive Douglas Yearley said in a statement.

Yearley took over as CEO last month, replacing Bob Toll, co-founder and CEO of the U.S. luxury homebuilder bearing his name and best known for its McMansions. The company said at the time the change in leadership did not signal a shift in strategy.

We're going to keep doing what we do, which is focus on the luxury buyer, Yearley told Reuters in May.

(Reporting by Nick Zieminski, editing by Maureen Bavdek)