Asset manager GCM Grosvenor is making a $200M bet on grocery-anchored retail.

The publicly traded investment firm with $97B in assets under management is providing the equity to Hyperion Realty Capital to seed a new vehicle called Hyperion Grocery Retail Partners III that will target value-add, grocery-anchored retail.

Hyperion plans to eventually build the closed-end fund’s aggregate property value to $1B as additional investors are brought on. The capital from GCM Grosvenor is coming from existing investment funds, and the company will get a board seat at Hyperion in exchange for the investment. 

Founded in 2019 by Jon Mendis, Hyperion owns 10 shopping centers in Western markets, and the latest fund will continue investing in the region. Mendis previously led investments at Retail Opportunity Investments Corp., which was acquired by Blackstone in a $4B deal after he left the company.

"We are excited to partner with Jon and the Hyperion team to help build a leading grocery-anchored retail platform,” GCM Grosvenor Managing Director Peter Braffman said in a statement. “Hyperion’s deep operating experience and industry relationships make them an ideal partner in the grocery-anchored retail space."

Hyperion, a vertically integrated firm that includes leasing and property management, targets grocery-anchored shopping centers that have value-add opportunities where in-place rents lag market rates and there’s opportunity for new leases through vacancies or renewals. 

Its portfolio includes four properties in Oregon, three in Washington, and one each in Arizona, Nevada and Idaho, according to its website. 

Chicago-based GCM Grosvenor, led by Michael Sacks since 1990 and publicly traded since 2020, has $7B in real estate assets under management, the smallest portion of a portfolio that includes private equity, infrastructure, credit and hedge fund investments. 

Shares in the company were trading up 1% early Friday and are up nearly 13% from the start of the year, roughly in line with the S&P 500 average.

Grocery-anchored retail has become a popular asset class in the past two years for public and private investors looking to make defensive acquisitions through needs-based retail. 

ROIC shareholders approved Blackstone’s takeover in February 2025, and the investment giant followed that acquisition with the December acquisition of Alexander & Baldwin, a public REIT and the largest owner of grocery-anchored shopping centers in Hawaii. 

More recently, Norges Bank Investment Management invested $500M with Asana Partners in July to build a retail portfolio, beginning with a 50% stake in a portfolio of grocery-anchored retail. 

That deal was announced a month after Norges, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, announced a joint venture with TPG, PSP Investments, La Caisse and others to acquire Echo Realty and its portfolio of more than 230 retail centers.