PREI + (PREI) = PGIM Real Estate

By Scott Baltic, Contributing Editor

Eric Adler, CEO, PREI

Madison, N.J.—Prudential Real Estate Investors, which operates as Pramerica Real Estate Investors outside of the Americas, Japan and Korea, will consolidate under one brand name as of next Monday, to henceforth be known as PGIM Real Estate in all the markets in which it operates worldwide.

The company is the real estate investment management business of PGIM, which is in turn the global investment management business of Prudential Financial Inc. and one of the world’s largest asset managers, with more than $1 trillion in AUM as of March 31. PGIM is the world’s largest real estate investment manager, according to an October 2015 survey by Pensions & Investments and had about $150 billion in combined gross AUM and administration across real estate equity, debt and securities as of March 31.

“For more than a decade, we have operated under two names. As our client base and investment activities have become more globally diversified, unifying our business under one name will allow us to simplify how our clients and partners interact with us in multiple geographies,” Eric Adler, CEO of PREI, said in prepared statement.

That global growth, PREI noted, has been such that over the last decade the number of countries in which its clients are domiciled has increased nearly four-fold, to 28 nations. Further, capital commitments from non-U.S. clients into PREI’s core, core plus, value-add and high-yield debt strategies comprised about half of its new business during the last five years.

“In recent years, as institutions have been under-invested in real estate versus their target allocations, we have seen capital flowing across borders into our regional and country real estate strategies,” Adler continued. “We believe this trend will continue as investors seek attractive and diversified investment opportunities outside their domestic markets.”

Since 2014, more than one-third of capital raised by PREI has originated from global investors committing capital to real estate investment strategies that invest outside their home markets. More specifically, two-thirds of PREI’s Asia Pacific clients have invested in U.S. real estate strategies and nearly half of PREI’s European clients have committed capital to U.S., Asia Pacific and Latin American real estate strategies.

The PGIM Real Estate name was chosen in conjunction with Prudential Investment Management’s name change to PGIM in January 2016. In addition, PGIM’s global commercial and agricultural real estate finance business will rename to PGIM Real Estate Finance in 2016.