Big and influential

Big and influential 2008-05-01 Staff Writer We here at <italic>PERE</italic> are pretty excited, and it's not just because the weather is warming up. You hold in your hands the product of many man hours of work in our quest to determine the largest GPs in the world, and the most influential LPs i

We here at PERE are pretty excited, and it's not just because the weather is warming up. You hold in your hands the product of many man hours of work in our quest to determine the largest GPs in the world, and the most influential LPs in the world.

The May issue of PERE unveils the PERE 30, our ranking of the largest private equity real estate firms in the world using an apples-to-apples methodology, that being the amount of private equity real estate direct investment capital raised over the past five years. The resulting list highlights a group of firms that are increasingly dominating the real estate deal market as well as increasingly becoming the recipients of institutional investor capital. Think of it as the Fortune 500 of your industry.

The PERE 30 was entirely quantitative – this is not a ranking of the best firms necessarily. Elsewhere in this issue, however, you will indeed find a more qualitative list in the form of a report on the “most influential” limited partners in the world. The selections were based on interviews the PERE editorial team conducted with numerous market sources. These individual LP investors are appreciated, respected and feared. Many of them can write big checks, but that alone does not make them influential. Some have demonstrated thought leadership among their peers by embracing new strategies or new geographies. Others are particularly adroit at hammering out the best economic terms and conditions for their institutions. Others bring to the table valuable resources and connections that GPs can use in pursuing their underlying property investment strategies.

The largest firms are deploying capital all over the world – increasingly in parts of the world that just 20 years ago were impenetrable. But it is notable that the largest private equity real estate GPs are headquartered almost entirely in the US. This contrasts strongly with a similar list of the largest private equity firms, published by sister magazine Private Equity International, that finds roughly a third of the top firms located in the UK and Western Europe. Clearly the natural evolution of investment industries whereby locals spin out to create their own firms is at a much earlier stage in private equity real estate.

That said, the most important limited partners in the world are a very diverse bunch. A strategy that was initially embraced by US pensions and endowments has spread very quickly to astute institutional investors around the world, including to very powerful Asia-Pacific and Middle Eastern groups that don't feel the need to spend decades dipping their toes in bonds and then stocks before taking the real estate plunge.

Enjoy the issue,

By David SnowDavid.s@peimedia.com