The PERE Podcast

Real estate credit in 2025: The stories and trends that moved the market

As the year draws to a close, we will spend the next two weeks breaking down the top private real estate headlines from 2025, as well as the trends that defined market activity. Next week, equity is in the spotlight. This week, the team is zeroing-in on debt, the engine room of the industry.

Lucy Scott sits down with PEI real estate debt gurus Daniel Cunningham, editor of Real Estate Capital Europe, and Samantha Rowan, editor of PERE Credit, to discuss the best-read content of the year, the standout themes and their takes on what these stories tell us about the forces shaping the European and US credit markets.

The team also give their insights on how these themes will play out in 2026. Will competition, a defining feature of the debt markets today, intensify? And if so, where will lenders go to deploy capital and find fresh ways to stay competitive? The team also breaks down the topic of back leverage lending – one of the biggest stories this year – and looks at how this theme might evolve as more lenders seek to use the tool in Europe.

‘An abundance of capital’: Competition heats up in Europe’s lending markets

Lending activity is ramping up in European real estate markets amid rising appetite from banks and alternative lenders alike – even as a limited number of investment deals to finance creates intense competition for opportunities.

That is just one of the takeaways from affiliate title Real Estate Capital Europe’s annual Active Lenders report, an exclusive compendium of 64 of the continent’s busiest real estate debt providers through the year’s first three quarters. On this episode, host Greg Dool chats with Real Estate Capital Europe editor Daniel Cunningham and senior reporter Silvia Saccardi for a dive into the key findings, including the fact that this year’s list indicates a resurgence among traditional banks in addition to their alternative counterparts.

Later in the episode, we hear directly from one of those Active Lenders, Leumi UK’s head of property finance Peter Clayton, for his perspective on the list and what it suggests about where the market is headed in 2026.

Regional retrenchment: ‘Financial engineering trumping local knowledge is over’

This episode discusses ICG’s retrenchment from Asia, following a line of western managers doing the same. We also speak to Gaw Capital, chairman of Goodwin Gaw, about his views on the current trend and the firm’s own renewed focus on the region.

Last week, PERE revealed plans by Intermediate Capital Group to shut down its Asia real estate business. The London-based firm, which manages approximately $7 billion of real estate assets, only expanded into the region three years ago.

 

Its withdrawal follows a number of private real estate investment management businesses and investors announcing similar plans, a trend of deglobalization being driven by geopolitical forces. While this is occurring generally, the impact of deglobalization on Asia is especially pronounced. Other recent examples of western managers backing away from the east include AEW, which has halted its flagship regional fund series, and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, which has disbanded its Asia real estate team.

 

Discussing these issues with The PERE Podcast host Lucy Scott is PERE’s Asia senior reporter Christie Ou. Listen as they dissect the trend, starting with Ou’s reporting on ICG’s plans.

 

PERE’s editor-in-chief Jonathan Brasse also calls upon Goodwin Gaw, co-founder and chairman of Hong Kong-based private real estate manager Gaw Capital, to share his views.

 

He tells PERE: “The days of financial engineering trumping local knowledge are over”, adding how managers with deep local knowledge and presences are best equipped to prevail given how wider forces have reshaped the opportunities in private real estate markets. Gaw also reflects on his own firm’s decision to stop offering more institutional products in western markets as part of a strategy to retrench to Asia.

'Rise of the stakers': Why Japanese firms are buying up US and European managers

Transaction activity has at last been picking up in the private real estate market after a multi-year slowdown. But one area that has stayed consistently busy has been the dealmaking environment for property fund managers themselves.

A string of deals dating back to last year has seen fundraisers band together to boost their assets under management, diversify their client offerings and seek to capture a greater share of capital from an increasingly disparate set of global investors and capital sources. One trend that has emerged of late has involved several manager stake sales that fit a similar paradigm: Large Japanese corporations, often with ties to the hefty investment arms of major insurance businesses, acquiring US- or Europe-based asset managers with sizeable real estate exposure.

From last week’s PERE exclusive on insurer Tokio Marine buying a majority stake in US real estate debt fund manager ACORE Capital, to Mitsui Sumitomo announcing the purchase of an 18 percent stake in Barings, to Mitsubishi Estate buying a majority stake in London-based Patron Capital – a deal which officially closed in the last week – and multiple other deals this year, one thing is clear: Japanese buyers represent a cohort of investors with serious appetite for private asset managers with inroads in the Americas and Europe.

Is it a trend? What is driving the activity? And what does it portend for the managers being acquired, the consolidators doing the acquiring, and those positioning themselves as the next targets? The latest episode of The PERE Podcast highlights several of these deals, with host Greg Dool in conversation with PERE editor Evelyn Lee and senior reporter Harrison Connery.

Later in the episode, we also hear from Patron founder Keith Breslauer for an update on his firm’s transition to Mitsubishi ownership and whether the market can expect to see additional similar deals moving forward.

The next frontier for real assets: Why multi-product managers have a head start to 2030

This episode is sponsored by Manulife Investment Management

As new industries evolve and accelerate, new opportunities are constantly arising for institutional investors in the private real assets space.

It isn’t always easy, however, for managers to grasp hold of these opportunities. As assets like data centers have become investable in recent years, managers have found that they need to devote time and effort to understand the dynamics around these unfamiliar assets. And the private markets industry has occasionally been guilty of obsessing over which labels to apply to emerging assets.

This is the first episode of our Private Markets 2030 podcast miniseries, part of PEI Group’s wider initiative exploring how private markets are evolving as we enter the decade’s second half. Across the series, we unpack how managers can adapt, attract capital and deliver performance in an increasingly complex market.

Joining us are three guests from Manulife Investment Management: Erin Patterson, global co-head of research and strategy; Maggie Coleman, the firm’s chief investment officer for real estate equity and co-head of global portfolio management; and John Anderson, global head of corporate finance and infrastructure. They discuss how multi-product managers have an advantage in expanding into new opportunity sets and argue that a multi-product approach offers obvious benefits around diversification, while allowing managers the flexibility to pivot into new opportunity sets.

'It’s a really solid asset class': Private capital warms to affordable housing

A recurring theme in real estate private equity this year has been the proliferation of capital into so-called “niche” or alternative property types beyond the traditionally institutionalized sectors such as office, retail, industrial, multifamily residential or hotels.

But while much attention has been paid to the emergence of segments including data centers, student accommodations or outdoor storage, another area of rising conviction among both institutional investors and their asset managers is affordable housing – particularly in the US, where mounting supply shortages have evolved into what most observers describe as a crisis.

Increasingly, private market investors want to be a part of the solution, and a growing cohort of asset managers are devising ways to address the problem while also creating strong opportunities for risk-adjusted returns.

On this episode, co-host Greg Dool is joined by PERE Credit editor Samantha Rowan and PERE Deals editor Guelda Voien for a look at why affordable housing is increasingly viewed as a strong match for institutional investment portfolios and the managers hoping to capture those allocations. We also hear from Alicia Glen, founder of New York-based private equity firm MSquared, which is currently raising its second impact-focused essential housing fund, in conversation with PERE Podcast co-host McKenna Leavens.

Further reading:

• PERE: MSquared’s Glen: ‘We need to do things differently’ in affordable housing
• PERE: CIM Group holds first close on debut fund focused on US affordability crisis
• PERE Credit: Mamdani win underscores need for affordable, middle-income housing
• National Association of Realtors: First-time home buyer share falls to historic low of 21%, median age rises to 40
• American South Capital Partners announces $60 million first close of its third affordable housing fund
• Federal Reserve Bank of New York: 2025 Case Study on Managers of Multifamily Affordable Housing Private Investment Vehicles

PERE America 2025: 'Everyone will have an opportunity to outperform'

In this episode, host McKenna Leavens sits down with Jonathan Brasse, PERE editor-in-chief, and Evelyn Lee, PERE editor, to unpack the optimism circulating at PERE Network’s 20th annual America Forum, held earlier this week in New York City. The flagship event brought together a record-breaking number of industry leaders and investors across the private real estate landscape.

“Palpable optimism” is the way Brasse described the feeling in the air. Listen as he relays the growing confidence among participants that the worst of the capital markets dislocation is over. The podcast reflects on key themes contributing to a positive mood, including the expectation of a rebound in transaction activity and the growing prevalence of core risk-return strategies. Development is also becoming a talking point.

Listeners will also hear from Jesse Hom, chief investment officer of real assets and head of real estate credit at Blue Owl, who joined a panel discussing signs of a strong recovery in the market.

But there were also notable degrees of skepticism, as Lee explains. Despite improving supply-demand dynamics, there are still uncertainties around long-term interest rates, rising inflation and government deficits, leading some to feel the industry is not yet out of the woods.

Read also: PSP, La Caisse explore recalibration of property portfolios  

The '$1 trillion club': Evolving capital markets create a higher tier of managers

In this episode, host Greg Dool sits down with Jonathan Brasse, PERE's real estate editor-in-chief, for a deep dive into one of the biggest forces transforming the private markets landscape: manager consolidation.

The discussion explores why private market managers across asset classes are acquiring or partnering with other businesses in a bid to scale up, and what that means for investors and the markets they serve. The conversation hinges on the release of PEI Group's Private Markets 2030, a series that takes a look at the major forces shaping the alternative assets industry.

Listen as Dool and Brasse unpack the shifts fuelling consolidation. Among increasing demands for diversification and transparency, they focus on a major change in the sources of capital that support managers. For three decades, private markets have been fuelled by institutional investors. But as these institutions reach target allocations, two other sources of capital – private wealth and insurance capital – have emerged, with both the appetite for private market exposure and the means to access it.