It is only natural that real estate investors and managers taking part in the global section of the PERE Awards 2023 should be among the industry’s largest – and a number of this year’s winners show how sheer scale can drive success in the industry – but it is not just about muscle; the roster of global award winners also features a range of companies which demonstrate innovation in concept, strategy and execution.
In a rapidly changing investment environment, innovation is more important than ever and the PERE Awards 2023 recognize this with a new Innovation Investor of the Year award, won this year by South Carolina-based manager Greystar.
Also Residential Investor of the Year, Greystar picked up the inaugural innovation award for its launch of a new US “attainable housing” platform, called Ltd by Greystar. Designed to make renting more affordable, Ltd rent increases are capped at 3 percent or the US Consumer Price Index (CPI), whichever is higher.
Projects that went live in 2023 included Ltd Med Center in Houston, the firm’s first branded apartment community, and Ltd Spring Run, which will be the first asset made entirely of units created in Greystar’s dedicated modular housing factory in Pennsylvania. Modular production will be a key element of the new strategy and is intended to deliver cheaper, faster construction with less waste.
As well as the establishment of Ltd, the residential investor award recognized Greystar’s global capital-raising efforts and the fact it started its first developments in Canada.
Big goals
Greystar is a global heavyweight as well as an innovator, and the same could be said for Hines, which picked up both Office Investor of the Year and ESG Investor of the Year. The Houston-based firm launched EXP by Hines in March 2023, scoring a first in combining ESG and venture investing. The new platform combines Hines’s Global ESG function with its Global Venture Lab.
EXP will both invest in and develop technologies to drive efficiency in the real estate sector and reduce carbon emissions. It made its first investment in CQuel, a “decarbonization marketplace” which matches asset managers with service providers and government incentives. Meanwhile, the office award in large part rewarded Hines’ timely brown to green office strategies.
Global scale
Size does still matter, though. Firm of the Year winner Blackstone Group’s global scale and reach boost its capital-raising capabilities.
However, this is not the only reason the firm was able to close the largest private real estate fund in history, Blackstone Real Estate Partners X, with $30.4 billion of committed capital. As of December 31, 2022, the firm had delivered a 16 percent net IRR on more than $100 billion of committed capital in the BREP global funds, over a period of more than 30 years. No surprise that BREP X won Capital Raise of the Year, picking up 46 percent of the vote, 20 percentage points ahead of runner up NREP Nordic Strategies Fund IV.
Leading the fundraising for BREP X was Kathleen McCarthy, global co-head of Blackstone real estate, who netted the Industry Figure of the Year award, ahead of Urban Partners’ Claus Mathisen and GIC’s Lee Kok Sun. McCarthy also led the formation of a $4 billion strategic venture with UC Investments and became chair-elect of The Real Estate Round Table, a US-based industry think-tank.
Success also bred success for Institutional Investor of the Year GIC, winning that award for the second year in a row as well as Hotels & Leisure Investor of the Year. The Singaporean sovereign firm sealed a number of significant investments all around the world in 2023, often in partnership with other large investors.
Highlights included acquiring the $4.4 billion Canadian real estate investment trust Summit Industrial Income REIT, purchasing the US-based industrial/logistics real estate investment trust Indus Realty Trust in partnership with Centerbridge and ADIA in a transaction valued at approximately $868 million, buying a 35 percent stake in €4 billion Southern European hotel chain Hotel Investment Partners and anchoring Coima’s Italian “brown to green” opportunity fund with a €200 million commitment.
GIC was the only global winner to take more than 50 percent of the votes cast in one category and the number of votes cast for GIC as Institutional Investor of the Year was greater than for any other global award winner.
Another Asia-headquartered global heavyweight in the awards mix was GLP Capital Partners, which took both Logistics Investor of the Year and Data Centers Investor of the Year, pipping Blackstone by a handful of votes in the latter category.
In 2023, GLP launched a global data center business, Ada Infrastructure, which has 850MW of secured capacity across centers in Brazil, Japan and the UK, as well as 1.5GW of future capacity. To add to these accolades, GLP-backed Hidden Hill Capital won the global Proptech Firm of the Year award.
The achievements of GIC and GLP, both headquartered in Singapore and with five global awards between them, demonstrates how Asia is growing in importance as a center of real estate excellence as well as a source of capital and an investment location.
First time winner: Hidden Hill Capital
The firm’s Asia investment push helped win it Proptech Firm of the Year
While US-based companies tend to dominate the tech industry headlines, Proptech Firm of the Year Hidden Hill Capital is making headway in the Asia-Pacific region. Backed by logistics and data center giant GLP Capital Partners and with offices in Shanghai, Beijing, Hunan, Xiamen and Hong Kong, Hidden Hill invests in companies in modern logistics, digital supply chains, renewable energy and related technologies, with a focus on cross-border opportunities across Asia.
It has invested in 90 companies across its target business areas, including Hong Kong-based supply chain and logistics solutions company Li & Fung, Chinese electric truck manufacturer Sany Heavy Truck and Baibu, a company specializing in digitalizing the supply chain in the Chinese textiles industry.
In a busy 2023, the company raised $465 million for its Hidden Hill Foundation Fund; $413 million in a proptech-focused separate account; and reached a first closing of 7.5 billion yuan ($1.06 billion; €0.99 billion) for its second RMB-denominated fund. It also launched its first Japanese venture capital fund, Monoful Capital, with a target of approximately $100 million.
Hidden Hill’s win follows achieving second place behind US firm Fifth Wall in the 2023 PERE Proptech 20 ranking, which is based on equity raised. Hidden Hill has raised equity of $2.356 billion over the past five years and now has more than $4 billion in assets under management.
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