Largest fund managers take a bigger bite of €3.8tn global real estate AUM

Total global real estate assets under management reached €3.8tn (£3.3tn) in 2022, second only to the 2021 year-end record high of €4.1tn. The Fund Manager Survey 2023, published by ANREV, INREV and NCREIF, highlights continued growth, with the average AUM for each manager reaching €32.8bn at 2022 year-end, up on the €28.7bn average reported for 2021. The data highlights the accumulation of capital within the larger fund managers globally, with 81% of this year’s total AUM (€3.1tn) concentrated within the top quartile of managers, ranked by AUM. The total AUM of the top 10 managers globally exceeded €1.8tn, compared with €1.7tn a year earlier. This accounts for 47% of the total global AUM, up from 41% in 2021. This trend can also be seen through recent merger and acquisition activity. In 2022, approximately 15% of respondents were involved in mergers (18% in 2021), while 22% were involved in acquisitions – up from 12% in 2021. The trend is especially notable in Asia-Pacific. Europe is the only region where respondents were not involved in merger activities in 2022. However, 20% of respondents in Europe were involved in acquisitions, which is on a par with the 2021 results. The value of dry powder stood at €215bn, slightly up from the €214bn recorded the previous year. The latest results represent 7.9% of the total global fund manager AUM. Once again, most of the dry powder – €167bn – is concentrated in the hands of the largest fund managers in the upper quartile. In 2021, the equivalent value of dry powder amounted to €153bn. Top 10 global rankings The top three global fund managers remain as they were in 2021, though individual AUM has increased substantially. Blackstone leads the field (€475bn), followed by Brookfield Asset Management (€246bn) and Prologis (€183 bn) in third position. Nuveen (€145bn) moved up from fifth to fourth place, while MetLife Investment (€138bn) claimed the fifth spot, replacing PGIM, which moved to eighth position. UBS and GLP – present in the top 10 global list in 2021 – gave way to new entrants, ESR (€133bn) in sixth position and Starwood Capital (€110bn) in tenth place. CBRE Investment Management (€127bn) and AXA IM Alts (€120 billion) were seventh and ninth respectively. Top 10 European rankings In Europe, there was also no change in the top three fund managers, though the running order has shifted. AXA IM took the top spot with AUM of €90bn – a €7.5bn increase from 2021 – followed by Swiss Life (€89bn) in second position and Blackstone (€88bn) in third place. Europe’s three leading fund managers have a combined AUM of €266.9bn, almost on a par with the remaining seven managers in the top 10, which account for a collective €321.3bn. Having dropped out of the top 10 in 2021, CBRE re-entered the list in fourth place in 2022. The rest of the list consists of Deka Immobilien Investment GmbH (fifth), UBS (sixth), Patrizia (seventh), Credit Suisse Asset Management, (eighth), Syntrus Achmea Real Estate and Finance (ninth) and DWS (tenth). To send feedback, e-mail julia.cahill@eg.co.uk or tweet @EGJuliaC or @EGPropertyNews Photo © Gerd Altmann/Pixabay