Nuveen's Schroders Buy Creates $175B Real Estate Manager

Nuveen’s £10B purchase of fellow asset manager Schroders is pushing the investment giant into the top five real estate managers globally by assets under management.

Nuveen has $142B in real estate AUM, according to its website, while Schroders Capital, a division of the wider Schroders business, has $33B of real estate assets, its website said. 

The deal will make the combined entity the world’s fifth-largest real estate investment manager, IPE Real Assets said.

Nuveen is owned by U.S. pension fund TIAA, which invests on behalf of U.S. teachers. It has $1.4T in total assets under management and is headquartered in New York.

Schroders is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is headquartered in the UK capital. It can trace its history back 200 years, and 42% of its stock is owned by the Schroder family, which has backed the deal. It has about $1.1T in assets under management and has itself been looking at acquisitions for the past few years to bulk up against bigger rivals. 

The Schroders brand will be retained. 

Nuveen’s real estate business is run by Real Assets Chief Executive Officer Mike Sales, a Brit, and Chad Phillips is the company’s global head of real estate. 

Schroders’ real estate operation is run by Global Head of Real Estate Nick Montgomery, and Allen Chilten is the firm’s global head of real estate capital formation.

The majority of Schroders’ real estate AUM is in the UK and Europe, so the deal will significantly expand Nuveen’s exposure in the region. 

Schroders specialises in living assets, hotels and logistics, and earlier this month, it formed a joint venture with the University Pension Plan Ontario to buy European logistics. 

Given its scale, Nuveen has a finger in most real estate pies in North America and Europe. Nuveen was previously a standalone manager that ran money for TIAA, but the pension fund bought it in 2014 for $6.25B.