For many years, Swiss bank UBS has been a potential treasure chest of investor firepower with its vast global wealth management division. Real estate managers have been seeking ways to work with it.
In 2021, Invesco, the Dallas-based global firm, announced it had launched the Invesco-UBS partnership offering UBS clients in Switzerland and other select markets across Europe and Asia the chance to invest directly in Invesco’s real estate strategies.
The partnership is enticing as it is global and diversified across asset sectors. Not only does it offer UBS investors direct real estate exposure, but also real estate securities and co-investment opportunities to further satisfy the hunger for income-producing strategies and stable returns.
Since launching the partnership, several investments have been made via Invesco's existing strategies.
However, on Wednesday, the partnership revealed the acquisition of a first direct real estate asset outside of any exisitng Invesco programme.
For the maiden deal, the partnership has opted for a US investment in the form of a multi-family property in the state of New Jersey.
The $174 mln (€163 mln) deal is in Roseland to the north west of Newark and has been made via a joint venture between Invesco Real Estate Income Trust, which is a public non-listed REIT, with Skylight Real Estate partners, a US regional privately-owned firm that focusses on multi-family and development.
Scott Dennis, Global CEO, Invesco Real Estate, said: ‘Invesco is one of the few firms that has a truly global real estate platform with experience investing through multiple market cycles across the full risk-return spectrum. To have grown this partnership to $625 mln within 10 months and created a truly diversified offering across the US, EMEA and Asia demonstrates the appetite investors have for exposure to private real estate.’
