  : IPE Real Estate Global Conference & Awards 2022

Founded in 1960 to develop a single medical building in Edmonton, Oxford Properties Group has become a truly global real estate firm with approximately C$80bn (€58bn) in assets under management when including its portfolio companies. Its portfolio encompasses office, logistics, retail, life sciences, multifamily-residential, hotels and credit, spanning more than 160m square feet across four continents. Together with its portfolio companies, Oxford is one of the world’s most active developers with over 100 projects underway globally across all major asset classes.

Oxford is the property investment arm of OMERS, the C$121bn pension fund for public sector workers in the Canadian province of Ontario. OMERS equity funding represents one-third of Oxford’s assets, long-term debt represents another third and fee-paying third-party capital the rest. To contribute to OMERS’ vision for a fully funded plan, in 2016 Oxford set itself a goal of becoming a C$60bn company by the end of 2020. It achieved that objective in 2019, a full year ahead of schedule.

Oxford experienced a transformational 2021. It grew its business with its portfolio companies to C$80bn, executed a record number of transactions, radically diversified its global portfolio, led the industry in carbon reduction, made smarter investment decisions powered by artificial intelligence and became the first major global real estate company with a majority female executive leadership team, all while generating a return of 12.6%, above its target return to OMERS of 9%.

Oxford closed on 100 transactions and development approvals representing C$15bn of activity in 2021: C$8bn of acquisitions; C$5bn of dispositions and C$2bn of development. To put this in context, in 2010, Oxford’s entire assets under management totalled some C$12.5bn.

Experiencing high levels of competition among core funds for large portfolio deals, Oxford was nimble in its approach and made a greater number of acquisitions than previous years but at a smaller average deal size.

At the same time, it was able to capitalise on the need of large institutional investors to deploy capital by selling large assets, primarily stabilised office properties. It was able to take advantage of the high demand for core, well-leased office assets with approximately C$2.5bn of gross office sales, rising to CA$5.2bn with the closing of St John’s Terminal in New York City to Google upon its practical completion in January 2022 for a consideration of US$2.1bn. This was one of two record-breaking office deals in 2021. The second was the sale of One Memorial Drive in Boston to the MetLife/Norges joint venture for US$825.1m. Together they represent the largest single asset US office sales in 2021. Both deals build on Oxford’s strategy to reduce its exposure to the office sector, achieving its long-term goal of office representing 15–30% of its capital. Just three years ago, it accounted for 50%. To take advantage of market conditions, Oxford has continued the work of rapidly diversifying its global portfolio in other areas, too, and in recent years has increased its weighting to global logistics by 25%, taking it from 28% to 35% of global capital.

In 2021, Oxford eclipsed its own target to reduce its carbon emissions by 30% by 2025 from its 2015 benchmark. In its sustainability report, which is independently audited each year, it highlighted a 35% reduction in carbon intensity, way ahead of target.

Oxford entered the AI race and developed machine learning to create a hunting algorithm that merges over 50 unique data sets all the way from Uber traffic data to leasing activity to identify undervalued acquisition targets.

Formed in 2008, Allianz Real Estate is now one of the largest real estate investors in the world. It develops and executes tailored portfolios and investment strategies totalling €83.8bn for Allianz insurance companies, pension funds and third-party clients from around the world. With 480 investment professionals contributing from 17 offices across Europe, the US and Asia Pacific, it is structured to combine its global framework, investment community and research capability with the local expertise of its acquisition and asset management teams.
Country Germany | Overall AUM €83,800m

APG Asset Management has a mature and diversified real estate portfolio of €57bn. Its objective is to provide access to a diversified portfolio of equity investments in real estate, achieve a superior risk-adjusted real return, and to outperform the benchmarks through active management over the medium to long term. APG invests in both listed and private real estate and, rather than focusing on a particular type of structure, it concentrates on return and moves across the whole spectrum, including direct investments, funds, co-investments, club investments and joint ventures.
Country Netherlands | Overall AUM €650,000m | Real estate AUM €56,800m | Annual real estate performance 23.3%

CPP Investments’ real estate mandate is to build and manage a portfolio of assets that deliver stable and growing income, focusing on well-located, high-quality assets managed by experienced, well-capitalised real estate companies, typically through joint ventures. The portfolio consists primarily of top-tier, income-producing properties that generate a stable income stream. The real estate team pursues development-oriented strategies where attractive risk-adjusted returns are supported by favourable supply/demand dynamics. To scale these strategies CPP Investments has allocated capital to larger relationships while still maintaining discretion over project-level commitments.
Country Canada | Overall AUM €382,400m | Real estate AUM €33,400m | Annual real estate performance 10.6%

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