Corporate Overview
Swiss Life Asset Managers1 has over 165 years of experience managing Swiss Life Group assets. Our insurance heritage has shaped a disciplined investment philosophy across our real asset platform, guided by three core principles:
- Capital value growth through solid asset management
- Responsible management of risks and opportunities
- Integration of ESG considerations throughout the investment process
Our objective is to deliver stable, risk-adjusted returns that help clients achieve their long-term investment objectives. Given the attractive risk- return profile of the asset class, Swiss Life has committed its balance sheet capital to real estate for more than 130 years. Swiss Life Asset Managers co-invests with many of its clients, ensuring a strong alignment of interests.
Swiss Life Asset Managers offers this proven approach to clients across Europe and increasingly internationally with more than 1,900 real estate professionals in 28 locations around Europe.
Alongside insurance assets for Swiss Life Group, assets under management total € 325.9 bn (as at 30 June 2026), with € 170.7 bn managed for third-party clients.
Swiss Life Asset Managers is a leading institutional real estate investor in Europe2 with € 97.7 bn invested in real estate. In addition, Swiss Life Asset Managers, in cooperation with Livit, manages real estate totalling € 26.9 bn in value. Overall, total real estate under management and administration comes to € 124.6 bn (as at 30 June 2026).
1 Brand name under which the asset management companies of Swiss Life have been operating since 2012; Swiss Life Asset Managers itself does not constitute a separate legal entity.2 #2 IPE Top 150 Real Estate Investment
Sector forecasts
INDUSTRIAL:
The industrial and logistics sector remains fundamentally well positioned, supported by long term structural trends including e commerce, supply chain diversification, reshoring and increasing defense expenditure across Europe. Demand for modern logistics and industrial space continues to be driven by occupiers seeking resilience, efficiency and strategic locations. At the same time, artificial intelligence and evolving production processes are expected to further increase demand for high-quality logistics infrastructure. Prime rents are likely to continue growing, albeit at a more moderate pace than during the post-pandemic boom years.
Investment opportunities are moving beyond large-scale logistics facilities. Urban logistics, multi let industrial estates and light industrial assets offer attractive prospects due to their diversified tenant bases and ability to capture rental growth through active lease management. Demand for modern, sustainable buildings in infrastructure anchored locations remains strong, while older secondary stock faces rising vacancies and declining competitiveness.
Performance is expected to be driven primarily by income return and rental growth rather than yield compression. Asset selection, local market expertise and active management will determine investment outcomes. Investors and developers should remain focused on specification, sustainability and flexibility to preserve tenant demand and long-term asset performance.
OFFICE:
Office markets are becoming increasingly bifurcated. While demand for prime, sustainable buildings in central locations remains robust, secondary assets continue to face structural challenges from hybrid working patterns, changing occupier requirements and increasing ESG expectations. Occupiers are concentrating their leasing activity on high-quality buildings that offer flexibility, strong amenities and excellent connectivity.
Limited new supply of prime offices across many European cities is supporting rental growth in the best assets and locations. At the same time, the divergence between prime and secondary office stock is becoming more pronounced, resulting in rising vacancies, increasing capital expenditure requirements and weaker liquidity for lower quality assets.
Opportunities are emerging for investors willing to undertake refurbishment, repositioning and redevelopment projects. Selective investments focused on building modernisation, sustainability upgrades and enhanced tenant experience can generate attractive risk adjusted returns. Success depends on asset quality, active asset management and the ability to create value through operational expertise.
RESIDENTIAL:
Many European markets continue to face significant housing shortages. Combined with strong labor migration, urbanisation and changing household structures, this has created a persistent imbalance between supply and demand that continues to support rental growth. These structural shortages will continue in the near future, underpinning a positive long-term outlook for the sector.
The need for additional housing supply creates opportunities for developers who can successfully navigate elevated construction costs, regulation and financing conditions. Core investors should continue to focus on affordability considerations and sustainable rental growth assumptions when underwriting investments.
The residential sector remains one of investors’ most preferred asset classes due to supportive demographics, resilient income streams and defensive characteristics. Attractive opportunities exist across the full risk spectrum, from core to value-add strategies. Beyond traditional multifamily housing, operational residential segments such as student housing, senior living and serviced apartments continue to gain importance.
RETAIL:
Retail has re-established itself as an attractive source of durable income. The investment case is increasingly based on stable cash flows rather than capital appreciation, with performance depending on retail format, local demand dynamics and active asset management.
Retail parks, grocery anchored centres and convenience focused retail continue to demonstrate strong resilience due to their exposure to everyday consumer spending and lower vulnerability to online competition. Prime high street destinations benefit from tourism and luxury spending, while the performance of other retail formats depends increasingly on quality, location and management.
Retail assets are evolving towards mixed use destinations that combine retail, leisure, gastronomy, residential and workplace functions. This transition creates attractive opportunities for investors capable of executing repositioning strategies and enhancing operational performance.
OTHERS:
Well-located hotels with a compelling offer for business and leisure travellers are expected to show the greatest resilience and performance potential with returns increasingly dependent on operational excellence, brand positioning and location quality.
Within healthcare, strong demographic trends and growing demand for alternative real estate sectors continue to support investor interest. The life sciences segment benefits from long term structural growth drivers including ageing populations, increasing healthcare expenditure and rising requirements for specialised research and laboratory facilities..
Investment principles & strategy
The world and the economy are changing and demanding more from the built environment. This has manifested in a shift in the way occupiers use properties, including the lease terms they are seeking. Against this backdrop, we focus on ensuring that our clients’ portfolios reflect this ‘new world’ shaped by globalisation, digitalisation and societal change. For us, managing assets and risks means protecting wealth and increasing long-term earnings potential. Our investment management is based on understanding our clients’ risk and return expectations and accurately reflecting them in our approach to the market. Our main priority is to invest responsibly and act prudently with the assets entrusted to us. Investment decisions are based on in-house research expertise and a rigorous investment process. Therefore, we manage risk actively and perform risk controls systematically on an ongoing basis to monitor the individual portfolios. The aim is to identify risks early so as to avoid or mitigate them, and to exploit opportunities for the benefit of our clients.
In a market environment characterised by increasing performance dispersion across countries, sectors and asset qualities, broad market exposure alone is no longer sufficient. Income return is increasingly replacing capital appreciation as the primary driver of total return, making active asset management, operational excellence and local market expertise more important than at any point in the previous real estate cycle.
Strategic corporate development
Over the past years, Swiss Life Asset Managers has constantly grown its business activities organically and inorganically. We offer comprehensive services across the full real estate value chain with strong local footprints of over 1,900 real estate professionals in 28 offices across Europe.
- Capabilities: Closed and open-ended real estate funds (listed and non-listed), investment foundations, dedicated mandates and separate accounts, JVs, club deals.
- Broad range of investment strategies across the risk/return spectrum with specific focus on well-diversified pan-European core/core-plus and increasing value-add capabilities.
- Thematic and sector-focused investment strategies such as European industrial and logistics, healthcare and hospitality.
Swiss Life Asset Managers also acts as a partner for co-investments in Europe.
Performance Verification
Swiss Life Asset Managers has a history of more than 130 years managing real estate and a proven track record across all sectors through different market cycles.
Compliance statement
This publication does not constitute an offer or a recommendation to buy or sell financial instruments, but is provided for information purposes only.
