Corporate overview
AEW is one of the world’s largest real estate asset managers with $86.3/€73.4bn of assets under management as at 30 September 2025. AEW has over 830 employees, with its main offices located in Boston, London, Paris and Singapore and offers a wide range of real estate investment products including comingled funds, separate accounts and securities mandates across the full spectrum of investment strategies. AEW represents the real estate asset management platform of Natixis Investment Managers, one of the largest asset managers in the world.
AEW is one of the leading European real estate investment managers with €35.6bn of real estate assets under management in Europe as at 30 September 2025. With over 515 employees operating from 12 locations throughout Europe, AEW has a long track record of successfully implementing core, value-add and opportunistic investment strategies on behalf of its clients. In the last five years, AEW has invested and divested a total volume of c.€14bn of real estate across European markets.
For more information on AEW, visit www.aew.com
Sector forecasts
Industrial:
Our 2026-30 rental growth forecast for 35 European logistics markets has been adjusted to 2.0% p.a. due to modest macroeconomic growth, reduced demand, and recent increases in the vacancy rate. However, the European average vacancy rate is expected to peak at 5.5% at the end of 2025 and projected to decline gradually to 4.1% by 2030. Higher interest rates have pushed prime logistics yields from 3.7% to 5.3%. Following the 2022-24 repricing and a revised outlook with less bond yield tightening, prime logistics yields are anticipated to decrease by 30 basis points from 2026-2030 (having already tightened by 15 basis points since the Q3 2024 peak). As a result, current income and rental growth will be crucial for prime logistics returns. Total returns for European logistics markets are estimated at 8.3% p.a. for 2026-30, including a 5.2% income return and 2.0% rental growth. The CEE and UK logistics markets are projected to yield the highest total returns at 9.2% p.a. each. Despite a recent pause, manager sentiment towards logistics has improved steadily since 2022, with logistics accounting for 18% of cross-sector European investment volumes in 2025 year-to-date.
Office:
Office vacancy rates peaked in Q1 2025 at 9.4% and have begun to decline in Q2 2025. With diminishing new supply and an increase in office conversions, overall vacancy is projected to fall further to 7.2% by 2030. Local sub-market data confirms that rising CBD office rents since 2020 are pricing out cost-sensitive tenants, making more affordable non-CBD submarkets increasingly attractive, which could reduce the current bifurcation in office markets. Average prime rental growth for 2026-30 is forecast to be 2.6% p.a. across the 63 European prime office submarkets in our coverage. Office transaction volumes in Q1-Q3 2025 remained low, down 70% from the 15-year historic average, with offices accounting for just 22% of total volumes. However, liquidity is expected to improve as more managers anticipate rising European office capital values. Our latest forecasts indicate average total returns of 9.3% p.a. over the next five years across the 63 covered European markets, the highest of any European sector. This average return includes double-digit returns for some of London’s office submarkets and 9.0% for the West End. Additionally, non-CBD submarkets in other major cities with higher current income yields are projected to outperform lower-yielding CBD markets.
Residential:
Despite lower mortgage rates and an increase in lending volumes over the past years, homeowner affordability is expected to remain challenging, with house prices projected to rise by 3.3% p.a. from 2026 to 2030 across 25 markets in twelve countries. The supply of new housing remains limited and continues to fall short of most national governments’ targets. Additionally, the private rental market is shrinking due to a range of regulations that make buy-to-let investments less appealing in the UK, Netherlands, and France. European prime residential rents are forecasted to grow by 3.2% p.a. during 2026-30, outpacing inflation, despite stricter rental regulations in recent years. Residential investment activity was weak in Q1-Q3 2025, with total European volumes just under €29 billion, but still represented 23% of all transactions. Prime residential yield expectations for the 2026-30 period are relatively flat, with most capital appreciation anticipated from rental growth. Total returns for prime European residential markets are expected to average 8.4% p.a., primarily driven by current income (4.0% p.a.) and rental growth (3.2% p.a.), with limited contributions from yield compression (0.1% p.a.).
Retail:
Despite ongoing uncertainty, real retail sales in the Eurozone are expected to grow modestly at 1.5% p.a., outpacing real GDP growth of 1.4% and real disposable income growth of 1.2% from 2026 to 2030. Prime retail vacancy rates reported by INREV have fallen to 3.7% in Q3 2025, down from 4.2% in 2021. Shopping centre vacancies have risen while vacancies for retail warehouses and high street locations have decreased over the past 2-3 years. After double-digit declines from 2019 to 2022, European prime rents for shopping centres and high street retail are anticipated to grow by about 1.2% p.a. from 2026 to 2030. Manager sentiment toward retail has improved significantly over the last three quarters following a prolonged downturn from 2015 to 2021, with German and French retail sentiment expected to follow the UK’s upward trend. Retail investment volumes in Q1-Q3 2025 reached €25.3 billion, similar to the same period in 2024 and significantly higher than in 2023. According to our Sep-2025 forecast, core European shopping centre and high street yields are expected to tighten by 30 and 17 basis points by 2030, respectively, from their peak levels in 2024 of 6.5% for shopping centres and 5.1% for high street retail. Total returns for European prime retail from 2026 to 2030 are projected at 8.6% p.a. for shopping centres and 7.3% p.a. for high street retail, with shopping centre returns likely to surpass those of high street retail in most countries. Finally, if future property yield tightening becomes uncertain, as government bond yields are expected to remain elevated, more cross-sector investors may find high current income returns offered by European shopping centres appealing.
Investment principles & strategy
Since its creation in 1981, AEW has been dedicated to creating and implementing real estate investment and asset management strategies for institutional and retail investors. AEW offers investors a wide range of investment solutions across Europe, including separate accounts and co-mingled funds across core to opportunistic strategies.
Strategic corporate development
Over the next three to five years, AEW is expecting to grow the European business by launching new strategies and continuing to invest on behalf of new and existing funds and separate account mandates. In particular, the firm is expecting to raise further capital for the following current strategies*:
- EUROCORE: an open-ended, pan-European core fund targeting a diversified portfolio of institutional quality assets in major European markets. The fund is targeting a €2bn equity commitment over time.
- LOGISTIS: a pan-European logistics fund comprising a standing portfolio of c.€5.0bn in Grade A assets.
- UK Single Family Rental: building a scalable portfolio of Single Family Rental properties focussed on the South and West of England.
- Spanish Residential: targeting build to rent, build to reposition and built to convert opportunities in areas of high demand and low supply, focusing on high sustainability standards.
- Value Add Series: new funds in both the UK and Europe focused on urban repositioning, office refurbishment, industrial & living.
- Retail and non-sophisticated investors are not eligible to invest in these funds.
Performance verification
AEW measures its performance against a number of benchmarks specific to investment strategy and style. The results of each portfolio are periodically audited by independent third parties and audited financial statements provided to clients.
Compliance statement
AEW includes (i) AEW Capital Management, L.P. and its subsidiaries and (ii) affiliated company AEW Europe and its subsidiaries. AEW Europe and AEW Capital Management, L.P. are commonly owned by Natixis Investment Managers and operate independently from each other. Total AEW AUM of $86.3 billion includes $41.8 billion in assets managed by AEW Europe and its affiliates, $4.3 billion in regulatory assets under management of AEW Capital Management, L.P., and $40.1 billion in assets for which AEW Capital Management, L.P. and its affiliates provide (i) investment management services to a fund or other vehicle that is not primarily investing in securities (e.g., real estate), (ii) non-discretionary investment advisory services (e.g., model portfolios) or (iii) fund management services that do not include providing investment advice. Staff and offices include AEW Capital Management, L.P. and AEW Europe and their respective subsidiaries.
