The PERE Podcast

In the second keynote interview from PERE's annual Europe Forum in London, BlackRock chief investment strategist Wei Li sat down with PERE editor-in-chief Jonathan Brasse to unpack where private real estate stands relative to other assets in institutional portfolios, and where it’s headed.

Few voices command as wide a view of the private markets universe as Li’s. Her calls, often made on behalf of the world’s largest asset manager, help shape the guidance institutional investors rely on to build and manage portfolios across numerous asset classes. That made her the natural choice to weigh in on where real estate sits relative to everything else competing for institutional capital.

This episode carries that conversation in full. Li discusses the strain that AI-driven spending is placing on other less-exposed areas of the market, a dynamic she describes as producing real “excruciation,” compounded by political friction and unfavorable press coverage of the burgeoning data center market. She also makes the case that traditional asset class labels matter less than they used to, arguing investors should look past broad categories like “real estate” and dig deeper into the specific themes underpinning a particular investment or exposure.

As for where property fits into that framework, Li says the asset class earns its place when it intersects with major structural trends or delivers cashflow that diversifies investors away from the market’s dominant storylines.

This is the second half of a two-part keynote series recorded at PERE Europe. Listen here for the first installment, featuring Norges Bank Investment Management’s Alex Knapp.

PERE’s annual Europe Forum in London brought together some of the region’s largest and most influential investors and managers to discuss where private real estate is headed – from capital flows and consolidation to how allocators are rethinking risk across sectors, geographies and investment structures.

Among the standout sessions was a keynote interview with Alex Knapp, global head of real estate at Norges Bank Investment Management, manager of the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund. Speaking with PERE senior editor Evelyn Lee, Knapp laid out how NBIM, which holds roughly $60 billion in public and private real estate, is taking a more dynamic approach to the asset class after significantly widening its investment mandate.

On this episode of The PERE Podcast, host McKenna Leavens brings listeners into that conversation, which also covers NBIM’s recent majority-stake purchase of eight shopping centers in Spain, a roughly €1.4 billion deal that he calls “the tip of the iceberg” for the fund's broader property ambitions. Knapp also breaks down the criteria NBIM is using to evaluate managers in pursuit of operational excellence, specialism and alignment as it seeks to scale its portfolio and revamp performance after multiple years of “mixed returns” from real estate.

For more from Alex Knapp, read PERE’s September issue cover story here.

This episode is sponsored by CounterpointeSRE

Despite the politicization of climate strategies in the US, the sustainable lending market continues to grow. Cumulative funding provided through the C-PACE green lending mechanism has reached over $10 billion. Meanwhile, the deals have grown bigger – regularly exceeding $100 million – as C-PACE has evolved from a niche funding mechanism into an established element of the capital stack.

In this special episode of The PERE Podcast, we’re joined by three guests from CounterpointeSRE, an asset manager of debt investments secured by sustainable real estate: Christopher Hoeffel, chief operating officer; Mary-Stuart Freydberg, head of research and sustainability; and Michele Pitale, the firm’s head of C-PACE.

Hoeffel identifies ongoing demand for sustainable financing solutions to inject additional liquidity into the capital stack in situations where higher interest rates have stretched property owners’ finances. Despite adverse headlines around ESG, real estate investors realize that sustainable assets offer more durable cashflows, argues Freydberg. Meanwhile, overly prescriptive regulatory frameworks are gradually being superseded by a more market-oriented approach.

Pitale charts the expansion of C-PACE financing, with most US states having now adopted the public-private mechanism, which enables owners to fund energy efficient upgrades, paid back through their property taxes. Better understanding of C-PACE is fueling investor demand to maximize the size of their loans, says Hoeffel, with a billion-dollar transaction potentially in the cards.

All views of CounterpointeSRE Employees and the guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CounterpointeSRE. You should not treat any opinions expressed by CounterpointeSRE or guests as specific endorsement to make a particular investment. References to any securities are or investments are  for informational purposes only, and do not constitute an investment recommendation or offer to provide investment advisory services. Any past performance discussed is not indicative of future results, and please keep in mind that investment in a fund entails a high degree of risk, including the risk of loss.

This episode is sponsored by Bouwinvest and Arrow Global

Once treated as an obligation, sustainability has now become critical to the investment thesis. As recent global heatwaves have revitalised discussion around the topic, real estate is confronting the ramifications of climate trends. The industry faces both transition and physical climate risks, directly linking asset performance to sustainability.

As a result, managers and investors can no longer treat it simply as a compliance issue. They must carefully evaluate valuations, closely consider the role of resilience and adopt a long-term perspective.

In this episode of The PERE Podcast, Timothy Prescott, manager of ESG at Bouwinvest, and Paul Woods, director with the ESG and sustainability team at Arrow Global, delve into how investors are reacting to the evolving sustainability landscape.

They challenge the practice of treating individual components of ESG as isolated categories, as well as the view that reporting is independent of investment outcomes. Their insights highlight how sustainability can supplement value-creation strategies throughout the lifecycle.

It is “Core Week” at PERE as we mark the release of our inaugural PERE Core 100 list of the industry’s top fundraisers for core and core-plus strategies globally with a range of accompanying interviews and analysis.

The debut ranking found that the top 100 managers focused on real estate’s lowest risk-return profiles raised a combined $223 billion in aggregate capital for such strategies over the last five years. It is a useful benchmark against which future iterations of the PERE Core 100 will be measured, but that is not stopping us from gleaning some predictions about where the asset class is headed.

In this episode, host Greg Dool chats with PERE editor-in-chief Jonathan Brasse and contributing reporter Kyle Campbell to break down the genesis of the Core 100, the research and methodology that went into it, and some of the biggest takeaways from the ranking’s first edition. We also sit down with Chad Tredway, global head of real estate at JPMorgan Asset Management – one of the top managers on the Core 100 list – for his take on where core and core-plus real estate sit in institutional portfolios and the types of factors that will drive investor appetite going forward.