Corporate overview
AEW is one of the world’s largest real estate asset managers with $85.5/€74.2bn of assets under management as at 31 March 2026. AEW has over 815 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 €35.8bn of real estate assets under management in Europe as at 31 March 2026. With over 510 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 €13bn of real estate across European markets.
For more information on AEW, visit www.aew.com
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 Senior Housing: scaling a private-pay, rental focused Senior Housing platform across London and the South East.
* Retail and non-sophisticated investors are not eligible to invest in these funds.
Sector forecasts
Industrial:
Our 2026-30 rental growth forecast for 35 European logistics markets has increased slightly to 2.3% p.a. on the back of greater push in manufacturing sovereignty in European defence, pharmaceuticals and energy. The European average vacancy rate is expected to peak at 5.4% at the end of 2025 and projected to decline gradually to 4.3% by 2030. Higher interest rates have pushed prime logistics yields from 3.7% to 5.3%. Given the Iran conflict, there is a revised outlook for higher inflation and less bond yield tightening. As a result, prime logistics yields are anticipated to decrease by 20 basis points in 2026-2030 (having already tightened by 15 basis points since the Q3 2024 peak). As a result, current income and rental growth remain crucial for prime logistics returns. Total returns for European logistics markets are estimated at 8.5% p.a. for 2026-30. The UK and CEE logistics markets are projected to yield the highest total returns at 9.9% and 9.1% p.a., respectively. Investment manager sentiment towards logistics has improved steadily since 2022, but the Iran conflict triggered a significant decline in sentiment in H1 2026. Logistics remains a liquid sector accounting for 18% of cross-sector European investment volumes for full year 2025.
Office:
Office vacancy rates peaked in Q1 2025 at 9.4% and have continued to decline over the last four quarters. With diminishing new supply and an increase in office conversions, overall vacancy is projected to fall further to 7% by 2030. Local sub-market data confirms that rising CBD headline rents since 2020 are pricing out cost-sensitive tenants, making more affordable non-CBD submarkets increasingly attractive. This is likely to reduce the bifurcation in office markets over the medium term. Average prime rental growth for 2026-30 is forecast to be 3.0% p.a. across the 63 European prime office submarkets in our coverage. 2025 office transaction volumes of EUR 53bn improved 23% from 2024 but remained below historic average, with offices accounting for below 20% 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 10.0% 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 include 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 bank lending, homeowner affordability is expected to remain challenging, with house prices projected to rise by 4.0% p.a. from 2026 to 2030 across the Eurozone. 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. 2025 European residential investment activity came in at €45 billion a 9% improvement to 2024 and representing just over 20% of all transactions. Prime residential yield expectations for the 2026-30 period are for a minor 10 bps tightening, with most capital appreciation anticipated from rental growth. Total returns for prime European residential markets are expected to average 7.4% p.a., primarily driven by current income (4.0% p.a.) and rental growth (3.2% p.a.), with limited contributions from yield compression (0.2% 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. Retail vacancy rates have moderated in varying degrees across sub-sectors from their 2020–21 COVID-related highs, with shopping centre vacancy at 6%, high street retail at 4%, and retail parks at 4% for Q2 2025. After double-digit declines from 2019 to 2022, 2026–30 rental growth across retail sub-sectors is projected to be positive, with shopping centres, high street retail, and retail parks expecting to have increases of 1.2%, 1.6%, and 2.7% p.a., respectively. Even if the Iran conflict has negatively impacted manager sentiment across sectors recently, retail sentiment still improved significantly following a prolonged downturn from 2015 to 2021. Transaction volumes for European retail came in at €31bn in 2025 still well below their €78bn peak in 2015. Concerns about e-commerce and interest rates drove a significant repricing. However, a recovery is now emerging as the share of retail within total transaction volumes has recovered to 16% in 2025 from a low of 10% in 2021. According to our Mar-2026 forecast, core European shopping centre and high street yields are expected to tighten by 35 and 25 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 8.9% p.a. for shopping centres and 7.2% p.a. for high street retail, with shopping centre returns likely to surpass those of high street retail in most countries.
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.
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 $85.5 billion includes $41.2 billion in assets managed by AEW Europe and its affiliates, $2.8 billion in regulatory assets under management of AEW Capital Management, L.P., and $41.5 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.
