Speaking to Green Street News in a joint interview, Nick Pink, head of European real estate equity; Jorge Zawerthal Duarte, head of portfolio management, European real estate; and Matthew McBride, senior director and portfolio manager for the European closed-end value-add real estate fund series, outlined Barings’ investment strategy for the coming months. The US investment manager closed 16 deals last year and allocated €1.1bn across its real estate equity mandates and strategies, despite repeated macroeconomic and political shocks derailing the rebound. Pink told Green Street News: “There is a degree of pragmatism that I haven’t seen before. After three or four years of waiting for the recovery to deploy capital, something that we weren’t expecting – the conflict in the Middle East – has derailed us again. “But the difference is that investors are almost prepared for another ‘black swan’ scenario, so they’re still active. It’s a very different market proposition, with a lot of off-market activity, but there is still activity. There’s always a temptation to wait for the market to be perfect – but waiting isn’t the right strategy. When there is no liquidity in the market, it makes a lot of sense to be deploying.”

Dry powder – but discipline

The €2bn of dry powder – spread across core, core-plus, and value-add mandates – provides opportunity. But Pink stresses that capital deployment will remain highly targeted. “We don’t need to invest all that money this year, but if the opportunity came along there is significant dry powder to deploy.” Barings expects to be a net buyer in 2026, but without the pressure to match last year’s pace of disposals, when it completed 18 sales, almost all at a profit. 

You can now read the full press release at the link below