Hong Kong-listed warehouse giant ESR has surpassed its industry rival GLP Capital Partners as Asia Pacific’s biggest real estate fund manager with non-listed real estate strategies by assets under management (AUM) in 2022.
ESR’s bump from the fourth rank to the top of the list was driven by its merger and acquisition growth that brought its non-listed Asia-Pac AUM to $70.8 billion, according to the Fund Manager Survey 2023 by the Asian Association for Investors in Non-Listed Real Estate Vehicles (ANREV).
The firm completed the $5.2 billion acquisition of ARA Asset Management in January 2022 and said in March that it had started the integration parts of the LOGOS business, formerly a subsidiary of ARA.
Top 10 fund managers by Asia-Pacific non-listed AUM
| Rank | Fund manager | AUM ($ billion) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ESR | 70.8 |
| 2 | GLP Capital Partners | 56.9 |
| 3 | Charter Hall | 40.3 |
| 4 | Goodman | 33.7 |
| 5 | Blackstone | 31.3 |
| 6 | Lendlease Investment Management | 26 |
| 7 | CapitaLand Investment | 19 |
| 8 | ISPT | 15 |
| 9 | LaSalle Investment Management | 14.9 |
| 10 | The GPT Group | 13 |
Source: ANREV
“The ongoing consolidation in the non-listed real estate industry is evident as the concentration of AUM in larger fund managers persists in 2022,” said Amélie Delaunay, Senior Director of Research and Professional Standards at ANREV.
Losing the top spot to ESR was GLP, a Singapore-based logistics real estate firm, which has $56.9 billion in non-listed APAC AUM. The logistics real estate players were followed by Australian property companies Charter Hall ($40.3 billion), and Goodman Group ($33.7 billion), respectively.
“It is interesting to observe that non-listed real estate AUM in APAC is dominated by single sector industrial and logistics investment managers, ESR, GLP and Goodman, which is a shift from five years ago where more diversified managers figured in the top three,” Delaunay noted in a statement.
Wall Street’s private equity behemoth Blackstone, which has a fund series dedicated to Asian real estate, came in at the fifth position with $31.3 billion in non-listed real estate AUM.
A significant share of the overall global real estate assets under management consists of non-listed properties. Of the total AUM of $4.1 trillion, non-listed investment vehicles make up 82%.
Non-listed real estate funds maintain their position as the leading non-listed products worldwide in terms of AUM, representing 60% ($2 trillion) of the total non-listed real estate AUM. This is trailed by separate accounts that directly invest, followed by debt funds, and subsequently by joint ventures and club deals.