GLP Leads Real Estate Fund Managers in APAC, Bumps CapitaLand From Global Top 10

GLP has seized the top spot among real estate fund managers in Asia Pacific, with the industrial specialist nearly doubling its APAC assets under management to $80.5 billion in 2021, according to data compiled by a group of non-profits serving the property investor community.

GLP leapt two places from last year’s ranking and also knocked fellow Singapore-based fund manager CapitaLand out of the global top 10, just one year after the Temasek Holdings-backed group cracked the worldwide elite tier for the first time, as reported in the Fund Manager Survey 2022.

The study by the Asian Association for Investors in Non-Listed Real Estate Vehicles (ANREV), its European counterpart INREV and Chicago-based fiduciary association NCREIF found that global real estate AUM grew by 14 percent to $4.7 trillion last year, led by North American fund managers Blackstone, Brookfield and Prologis.

“The findings reaffirm that Asia Pacific continues to attract a healthy and growing share of global real estate AUM, reflecting great confidence in the long-term outlook of the region’s property,” ANREV research director Amelie Delaunay said last week in a release. “AUM of single sector industrial-focused managers has been particularly striking with GLP entering the top 10 at the last position and Prologis confirming its third rank.”

Singapore Giants Rule Region

With a focus on the region’s red-hot logistics sector, GLP’s $80.5 billion in APAC real estate AUM surpassed second-place CapitaLand’s $65.5 billion. Both ended up well ahead of the next three finishers, Australian property group Charter Hall, Hong Kong-listed ESR’s Singapore entity and Temasek-owned Mapletree Investments.

US private equity titan Blackstone remained in first place worldwide with real estate AUM of $475.5 billion, followed by Canada’s Brookfield ($250.8 billion) and three American fund managers: Prologis ($215 billion), PGIM ($209.3 billion) and Nuveen ($157.7 billion). All five top players maintained their respective positions from the previous year’s survey.

Blackstone was the only fund manager to feature in the top 10 rankings of Asia Pacific, North America and Europe, while Brookfield and Swiss giant UBS landed in the top 10 of both Asia Pacific and their home region.

With 38 percent of global real estate AUM, North American strategies overtook European strategies (34 percent) as the most popular in 2021, the survey said. APAC strategies placed third (16 percent), followed closely by global strategies (12 percent) — the latter of which raised a record $64 billion in 2021, as reported in last month’s Capital Raising Survey.

Managers Making Headlines

The Fund Manager Survey looked at 154 managers worldwide. The poll covered an eventful 12 months that included ESR’s move to acquire Singapore-based ARA Asset Management, which topped last year’s ranking of the biggest fund managers in APAC real estate before its integration into ESR this year. The enlarged ESR, including ARA subsidiary Logos, would have had total AUM of $140.2 billion in 2021, according to the company’s financial figures.

Also making headlines last year was CapitaLand’s split into a privately held development arm and an SGX-listed investment management platform.

Of the $4.7 trillion in global AUM, non-listed real estate accounted for 85 percent or $3.9 trillion, with funds comprising 58 percent of the total, followed by separate accounts investing directly, joint ventures and club deals, and debt funds.

The amount of dry powder edged up to $243 billion in 2021, representing 7 percent of total real estate fund manager AUM. Core strategies made up 69 percent of AUM globally, with their lowest share being 55 percent in Asia Pacific, where opportunistic strategies represented 33 percent of the region’s AUM.

The Fund Manager Survey was first launched in 2011 and later expanded to include global coverage in 2015, with results based on data provided directly by managers.