Global Realty Investment Managers Reach AUM of EUR3.3 Trillion

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The Fund Manager Survey 2021 published on May 20th by ANREV, INREV and NCREIF, highlights the strength of real estate as an institutional asset class. The latest results build further on the massive gains of the past decade with total AUM more than tripling from EUR0.9 trillion in 2009 to EUR3.3 trillion at the end of 2020. A significant proportion of total AUM (37 per cent) is attributed to the top 10 global managers, while the largest 39 managers in the upper quartile of respondents by number account for 78 per cent of the total. Interestingly, despite the greatest concentration of global AUM in larger fund managers, the growth in 2020 came from the lower quartiles, albeit the overall impact is very marginal. This year’s survey saw a rise in the number of participants to 154 – up from 140 the previous year. The top two slots are unchanged from last year with the Blackstone Group leading the pack of managers with AUM of EUR260.5 billion, followed by Brookfield Asset Management on EUR172.4 billion. Prologis is at number three with AUM of EUR121.0 billion, moving up from 6th place in 2019 – the result of strong value growth in the logistics / industrial sector. PGIM Real Estate are fourth with EUR118.8 billion, and Nuveen retains its fifth-place ranking with an AUM of EUR108.4 billion. The remainder of the global top 10 is made up of: AXA IM Alts (6th – EUR96.0 billion), CBRE Global Investors (7th – EUR92.3 billion), UBS Asset management (8th – EUR88.7 billion), MetLife Investment Management (9th – EUR82.9 billion) and Capitaland (10th – EUR81.7 billion). Each of the top 10 fund managers posted an AUM of at least EUR80 billion in 2020. Hines, which was fifth on the list last year, has dropped to 14th in the current survey and Swiss Life dropped from 9th to 11th over the same period. These falls were due in large part to the introduction of a new, streamlined definition of AUM. With 39.1 per cent of total global AUM, European strategies account for the lion’s share, overtaking those in North America (32.2 per cent) in 2020. Asia Pacific strategies contribute 17.9 per cent to the total, while global strategies are at 10.5 per cent. At an individual manager level, AXA IM Alts tops the European strategies list with AUM of EUR76.1 billion, followed by Swiss Life Asset Management in second place (EUR73.7 billion) and The Blackstone Group (EUR65.9 billion) in third. All of the managers included in the European strategies’ top ten list posted AUM of more than EUR39 billion. With an AUM of EUR102.4 billion, Brookfield Asset Management tops the list of managers in North America, where PGIM Real Estate is second with EUR 98.2 billion AUM. The third largest North American manager is Prologis on EUR83.0 billion. The three largest managers with Asia Pacific strategies are ARA Asset Management (EUR54.5 billion), Capitaland (EUR 51.3 billion) and GLP (EUR34.5 billion). Interestingly, the two largest are way ahead of the rest, each with total real estate AUM of over EUR50 billion. Only the top three in this region have an AUM of more than EUR30 billion each. The largest manager following a global strategy is The Blackstone Group which reported more than US$114 billion; nearly double the AUM of the second largest, Brookfield Asset Management. The Blackstone Group is the only fund manager to feature in the top 10 rankings in all three main regions, as well as for global strategies. Non-listed real estate vehicles account for a substantial 83.1 per cent of the total global AUM. Looking closer at the non-listed real estate vehicles only, non-listed real estate funds continue to dominate globally, with a 56 per cent share. Next are separate accounts investing directly, followed by JVs and clubs.