Christian Goebel
Macquarie Asset Management is spinning off its core and core-plus real estate activities into an independent investment manager with €11.4 billion ($12.4 billion) in assets under management.
The new business, called Manova Partners, will largely consist of the real estate platform acquired through the 2018 purchase of Germany’s GLL Real Estate Partners, Macquarie said in a release.
A strategic review conducted by the Australian finance giant found that the real estate arm’s next phase of growth would be best served by operating independently as a boutique investment manager, to be headquartered in Munich.
Christian Goebel and Florian Winkle, who joined Macquarie Asset Management from GLL, will lead Manova Partners as co-CEOs, espousing a “research-led, boots-on-the-ground” approach.
“Launching Manova Partners as an independent and specialised real estate player will allow us to further develop this offering, identifying differentiated opportunities in established and growing markets,” Goebel and Winkle said. “It will also ensure we remain agile and responsive to our clients’ evolving needs.”
Employee-Owned Enterprise
More than 150 staff are expected to transfer from Macquarie Asset Management to Manova Partners, which is targeting a fourth-quarter launch after the satisfaction of closing conditions and regulatory approvals.
Florian Winkle
Upon completion of the transaction, Manova will be an independent company owned by its employees, with 17 locations worldwide and a portfolio of more than 170 properties and development projects across Europe, the Americas and Asia Pacific.
In June, Macquarie Asset Management announced the final closing of an opportunistic real estate fund, with the vehicle having raised $1.9 billion in equity commitments to deploy under a global mandate focused predominantly on developed markets.
Macquarie Real Estate Partners is the second vehicle under the firm’s opportunistic real estate fund series after the Asia Pacific opportunistic real estate partnership (MREP Asia 1), which reached a final close in 2021 with A$1.1 billion ($850 million) in equity commitments and is now deployed across developed markets in the region.
Macquarie Asset Management’s global head of real estate, Brett Robson, left the firm earlier this year and was succeeded in the role by Eric Wurtzebach, previously head of principal investment and management for the Americas at Macquarie Real Estate.
Active in APAC
With A$30.7 billion of global assets under management across core, core-plus and opportunistic strategies as of June 2023, Macquarie Asset Management’s real estate division has been actively deploying capital in Asia Pacific, with James Kemp, the fund manager’s head of APAC real estate, telling Mingtiandi last November that Japan was a key market for logistics investment.
Macquarie Asset Management has invested in a number of APAC logistics platforms over the last 15 years, including having been an early backer of regional player Logos (now part of HKEX-listed ESR) and once ranking as its largest shareholder.
The company is currently managing a sales process for Australian data centre operator AirTrunk, which could end up valued at $9.8 billion. A consortium led by Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets acquired an 88 percent stake in AirTrunk from Goldman Sachs, Sixth Street Partners and AirTrunk founder Robin Khuda in 2020.
Leave a Reply