The PERE Podcast

A competitive bidding war concluded with Blackstone triumphing over Tritax for Warehouse REIT, but the plot thickened when they entered into a surprising partnership. Blackstone's sale of a £1 billion logistics portfolio to Tritax brought unexpected twists, including Blackstone acquiring an 8.6% stake in Tritax. As the discussion unfolds, insights emerge about private equity’s growing influence in the UK market, highlighting strategic implications and parallels to past mergers. Industry experts weigh in on whether UK REITs might be losing ground to their private equity rivals.

Join Charlotte D'Souza, PERE EMEA editor, and Kevin Moffat, head of EMEA Industrial and Logistics Research at Savills, as they dive into the implications of rising defense spending on European real estate. They discuss Germany's pivotal role and widespread industry interest sparked at Expo Real. Charlotte argues that defense spending will primarily boost real estate through economic growth, while Kevin reveals an estimated demand of 37 million square meters across key markets. Is it too early to consider defense real estate as a distinct asset class? Tune in for insights!

In this discussion, Charlotte D’Souza, EMEA editor at PERE, outlines the concerning 3.6% decline in allocations among the world’s top property investors. Evelyn Lee, also from PERE, connects this trend to fundraising difficulties and changing market sentiments. Dimme Lucassen from Evercore offers insights into how lagging valuations impact transactions and the potential for capital to shift permanently towards other asset classes. Together, they explore regional patterns and the future outlook for private real estate investing.

In this enlightening discussion, Jay Patel, Managing Director at Arrow Global, and Arvi Luoma, Head of Cain International’s European investment committee, explore the shifting landscape of European real estate. They reveal that US and Middle Eastern investors are increasingly eyeing Europe. The duo identifies key opportunities in distressed projects in Germany, Spain’s booming tourism, and the rising demand for student housing. They also dive into the evolving role of ESG in investments and how stabilizing financing conditions are paving the way for cautious optimism in the market.

In this episode, the editorial team spotlights rising ambitions in real estate debt following news that QuadReal, the property arm of British Columbia’s public-sector pension scheme, plans to deploy £2.5 billion ($3.3 billion; €2.9 billion) into European real estate credit in the next five years through a newly launched direct lending platform. By the end of 2029, QuadReal aims to have between 10 and 20 percent of its global real estate debt exposure in the UK and continental Europe, to complement its North American credit platform. It is just the latest example of a North American manager broadening its ambitions to lend in Europe. Last week, Brookfield wrote its largest European real estate loan deal to date, providing £450 million to refinance two UK retail centers. KKR, meanwhile, plans to deploy a significant piece of the $850 million raised for its latest real estate credit fund to the continent, citing a “very compelling” lending opportunity there, affiliate Real Estate Capital Europe reported in March. Minnesota-based manager Castlelake is currently deploying €1 billion of designated real estate loan capital specifically bound for the Nordic region. What does this cross-border push suggest about institutional shifts within private real estate going forward? Listen as host Lucy Scott, deputy editor of REC Europe, is joined by Daniel Cunningham, REC Europe’s editor, and Silvia Saccardi, REC Europe's senior reporter, to discuss the trend and dig into the factors driving it. Stay tuned for additional perspective from London-based debt advisory business Art Capital’s Tim Vaughan and AJ Storton, who believe this increasing capital formation and deployment activity is underpinned by the rapid growth of back-leverage lending via US investment banks.

The private real estate market got a boost last week when the US Federal Reserve lowered its benchmark policy rate for the first time in nine months. It is a welcome shift for a property sector that has spent three years grappling with the consequences of higher-for-longer interest rates. But what are the immediate effects of a return to rate-cutting, and how does it alter forecasts for capital deployment and returns going forward? This episode breaks it all down, with reactions from across the equity and debt sides of the industry. Listen as host Greg Dool chats with PERE Deals editor Guelda Voien and PERE Credit deputy editor Randy Plavajka about the market context for the Fed’s shift and the key indicators for real estate investors in the months ahead. Later in the episode, we hear from Newmark’s managing director of global research, David Bitner, and head of commercial capital markets research, Joe Biasi, for their take on the news and the extent to which it alters the calculus for dealmaking and fundraising in the rest of 2025 and beyond.

In this episode, Patron Capital founder Keith Breslauer says the firm’s sale of a majority stake to Mitsubishi Estate Global Partners should be seen as a springboard for growth rather than an exit. Breslauer sat down with PERE’s Jonathan Brasse in August following the headline-grabbing sale of the Europe-focused firm to Mitsubishi Estate Global Partners, the investment management business of Japanese property giant Mitsubishi Estate. Listen to the wide-ranging interview in full, as Breslauer sets out how the business will evolve following that sale. “I didn’t do this to exit. I did this to grow,” he explained. Find out the rationale and opportunity behind Mitsubishi’s backing, which includes an initial €600 million equity injection, and how Patron will diversify as a result, taking it beyond its 25-year history in opportunistic equity investing. Among the initiatives discussed is the build-out of a private real estate debt platform, launched in April under the leadership of former CBRE executive Henry Randolph. Breslauer also highlights strong investor appetite for credit strategies but stresses the need to underwrite cautiously in volatile markets. Among the other topics floated during this episode is a potential collaboration with Europa Capital, another London-based manager acquired by Mitsubishi in 2010, and a willingness to contribute to Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction.

This week, The PERE Podcast breaks down the revelation that banking giant Morgan Stanley’s real estate arm has amassed a $900 million fund specifically targeting Japan’s real estate sector. The capital raise is notable not just for its size, which greatly exceeded its target of around $500 million, but for the strategic approach it represents as Morgan Stanley’s first country-specific real estate fund outside the US. Morgan Stanley is not alone among North American asset managers in its enthusiasm for the Japanese property market. In May, BGO closed a $4.6 billion Asian real estate fund – its largest fund ever – with 65 to 75 percent of the capital earmarked for Japan. In June, Los Angeles’ Ares Management closed a $2.4 billion fund focused entirely on Japanese data centers. These, along with the $4 billion raised for Hong Kong-based PAG’s Secured Capital Real Estate Partners VIII, which will be 70 percent deployed to Japan, were among the eight biggest real estate funds closed anywhere in the world in the first half of 2025. What is driving all of this capital formation? Listen as host Lucy Scott, PEI real estate editor-in-chief Jonathan Brasse and PERE editor Evelyn Lee discuss why international managers are seeking to deploy in the country, what this latest news means in the context of Morgan Stanley’s real estate history, and what it signals to the market about the firm’s evolution as a manager.

Offices are back in the spotlight this week on both sides of the Atlantic, and this episode explores some of the reasons behind the sector’s newfound momentum in both investor interest and lender appetite. Join host Greg Dool, Real Estate Capital Europe editor Daniel Cunningham and PERE Deals reporter McKenna Leavens as they discuss the latest developments, including Norges Bank Investment Management's acquisition of a Midtown Manhattan tower, a deal announced on Tuesday, as well as surging activity in London, where offices have featured prominently in a hotbed of financing deals in recent days. The episode also features expert analysis from Oliver Salmon, director of global capital markets at Savills World Research, who sat down with co-host Lucy Scott to discuss the driving factors behind renewed investor confidence in the office sector and what this could mean for non-prime office assets and locations.

This episode is sponsored by Arrow Global Germany’s property market is facing the highest insolvency rate in Europe. Years of cheap credit and rising prices encouraged aggressive development, but when interest rates jumped, buyers paused, sales collapsed and projects ran out of cash. The result: a wave of bankruptcies across the sector. However, in this episode, CEO of Arrow Global Germany Bernhard Hansen explains that there’s opportunity within this dislocation. Stalled projects and smaller developments are waiting for investors with the expertise and capital to finish them. With housing demand far outpacing supply, especially in cities like Munich, he believes there is still strong long-term potential. That potential of course comes with challenges: stricter sustainability rules, tougher financing conditions, and wary buyers mean projects take longer and require deeper due diligence. Yet Hansen is optimistic. International investors and alternative lenders are stepping in, and he says the correction is less of an ending, and more of a recalibration of Germany’s real estate market.