Swiss Life Asset Managers wants to grow its UK assets under management from £1.9 billion to £5 billion by 2030 as part of a major European expansion drive.
Details of the proposals emerged this morning at a Swiss Life Asset Managers strategy update with journalists in London. The group will have a new head of real estate from 1 July when Jan Plückhahn, formerly head of real estate Germany, takes up the reins.
Giles King, chief executive of Swiss Life Asset Managers UK, said alongside ambitions for aggressive expansion in its core Continental European markets of Germany, France and Switzerland, the group was targeting major growth in the UK and Nordics.
Swiss Life Asset Managers is one of Europe’s largest institutional real estate managers with €114 billion in AUM. In 2023, Swiss Life AM rebranded Mayfair Capital, the London-based institutional real estate boutique it had bought in 2016 as it looked to broaden its reach to target new clients in the UK.
In the UK the firm has £1.9 billion of assets under management with 34 staff and advisory mandates with Cadogan, Schroders and Jupiter. One of its main funds is the Property Income Trust for Charities, known as PITCH, which has assets under management of £528 million.
King said the extra £3 billion AUM would be added via a number of strategies one, of which is a likely, doubling of PITCH's AUM to around £1 billion. PITCH has, broadly, joined the wider Swiss Life Asset Managers strategies of targeting assets in the living space, logistics and light industrial and life sciences while reducing its exposure to offices. It began to invest in single family living in the UK in 2022.
Swiss Life AM UK is also in talks to take on more real estate advisory mandates on portfolios owned by charities after its recent appointments by Barts Charity and Christ’s Hospital. Earlier this year it was appointed as the investment adviser on a new separate account mandate for Christ's Hospital's £120 million UK commercial property portfolio.
Simon Martindale, fund director for PITCH, said the ability to advise charities on real estate portfolios was a "USP" of the business, having managed charity capital for over 20 years. Martindale said the open-ended fund has never gated or deferred redemptions for liquidity reasons since it was launched in 2004.
The four "L" sectors will also be the main focus of Swiss Life Asset Managers' broader growth with Tim Munn, UK chief investment officer, saying that the market was more broadly in the beginning of a recovery. "The point is, unlike with the period post-GFC, the recovery this time is income led. What is important is having the right assets." The sectors are living, logistics, life sciences and light industrial.
In the UK Swiss Life AM will increasingly invest in operational real estate platforms. It has recently formed a joint venture with True North Management, a real estate investment management company in the London coliving space, and partnered with Ares Management Real Estate Secondaries funds to invest into The Storage Team, a direct-let self-storage portfolio of 15 assets in England. Swiss Life Asset Managers UK acts as investment manager with operational services provided by its subsidiary MC Self Storage.
The focus on the living sector will also take on build to rent, healthcare and student assets.