IPE Real Assets March/April 2026: A tale of two mergers

This year began with talk of two mergers: one entering completion and another only just about to start. In the first, the tie-up has given rise to a new, yet familiar, name in the market: BNP Paribas Asset Management Alts. It combines the real estate, infrastructure, alternative credit and private equity of what was AXA IM Alts and BNP Paribas AM to create a €300bn private-markets platform.

In the second, Schroders has prompted much chatter in London financial circles with the news that the historic business – dating back to the early 19th century – has agreed to sell itself to US behemoth Nuveen.

Both are part of an M&A trend in full swing, and are not necessarily motivated with real estate, infrastructure or real assets front of mind – although a broader expansion into alternatives and private markets is very much a key factor behind the rationale. “Most consolidation deals revolve around boosting alternative product offerings, global reach, technology capabilities, permanent capital or client proximity,” Boston Consulting concluded in its 2025 global asset management report. William Huffman, CEO of Nuveen, said the transaction was “about unlocking new growth opportunities for wealth and institutional investors around the world by giving our leading, differentiated public-to-private platform a broader global presence”.

But the mergers have big implications for the incumbent real estate and infrastructure businesses of the firms involved. Based on IPE Real Assets’s most recent top 150 real estate investment managers report, BNP Paribas AM Alts would have had €136bn in real estate AUM last year, placing it seventh in the ranking, two spots above Nuveen. However, the combination of Nuveen and Schroders’s real estate arms would have amounted to a real estate investment manager with €148bn AUM, putting it in fifth place.

A similar exercise can be done with infrastructure. BNP Paribas AM Alts would have had €25.8bn in the asset class, placing it 23rd, while Nuveen and Schroders together manage €50.5bn in infrastructure, making it the 11th largest in the ranking.

Schroders’s real estate and infrastructure businesses are led by Nick Montgomery and Minal Patel, respectively, while Chad W Phillips was made global head of real estate at Nuveen in March last year, Mike Sales is CEO of real assets, and Jessica Bailey was recently appointed head of global infrastructure at Nuveen.

Bailey acknowledges the benefits of size and breadth across real assets. “One of the huge advantages that Nuveen has is simply our scale,” she says. “And so, our ability to find opportunities in infrastructure is really enhanced by the fact that we have such a large and active real estate team.”

Expect to see more consolidation in asset management. A report by Oliver Wyman and Morgan Stanley predicts that by 2029 more than 1,500 M&A transactions will take place and there will be 20% fewer wealth and asset managers in the industry.

“This is part of the broader trend for the growth of larger global real estate platforms, often straddling real assets and broader private markets,” says Peter Hobbs, managing director of private markets advisory at Bfinance. Although they may generate some good synergies, these integrations are never easy, he notes, and “associated with considerable uncertainty – for staff, investors and partners”.

Richard Lowe, Editor-in-chief