A More Perfect Union: CRE Mergers and Acquisitions Spiked in 2025

Commercial real estate experts predicted that mergers and acquisitions activity would spike in 2025, largely as a new, more business-friendly federal administration and stability in the Treasury yields set the stage for public-to-private and public-to-public deals to dominate. 

And dominate they did.

It began with Bill Ackman, founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, who announced 13 days into 2025 that he intended to take past Power 100 honoree Howard Hughes Holdings (HHH) private. That deal was finalized last May when Pershing Square struck an agreement to invest $900 million in HHH. As a result, Pershing Square owns a 46.9 percent stake in HHH, which remains active in commercial real estate after transitioning into a diversified holding company.

Another major M&A deal in early 2025 was for coworking firm Industrious, which has expanded its global footprint by 58 percent to more than 250 locations across over 100 cities globally since its takeover by CBRE in January. CBRE fully acquired Industrious in a deal that valued the latter firm at $800 million. As part of the deal, Industrious CEO and co-founder Jamie Hodari was appointed to lead CBRE’s new Building Operations & Experience business line.

In January 2026, Compass completed its $1.6 billion all-stock acquisition of Anywhere Real Estate, and in doing so created the world’s largest residential real estate brokerage by volume. Brands such as Century 21, Coldwell Banker, Sotheby’s and Corcoran are all now under the Compass umbrella as part of that deal.

Speaking of a company that’s the biggest in its respective space, data and search giant CoStar Group in August acquired Domain Holdings Australia Limited, one of Australia’s leading property marketplaces, for $1.9 billion.

Plus, hospitality coworking firm Convene reorganized the following month nearly two years after it acquired another event space provider, Etc.venues. The firm’s executives established Convene Hospitality Group (CHG) to manage its main operations, its hospitality brand and any potential acquisitions. The most recent acquisition for CHG was its February 2026 deal to buy members-only coworking brand NeueHouse for an undisclosed sum.

And, toward the end of last year, Rithm Capital finalized its $1.7 billion acquisition of Paramount Group’s 13.8 million-square-foot office footprint in New York and San Francisco. (Rithm also recently rebranded the portfolio as Elecor Properties.) Rithm, too, around the same time acquired $17 billion private credit firm Crestline. 

That deal seemed to presage more M&A activity in 2026, which is moving swiftly forward.

In March, Sun Life Financial finished acquiring the equity stakes in both real estate investment manager BGO and alternative credit investor Crescent Capital — a deal worth nearly $1.8 billion. In a separate deal announced the same time, Sun Life agreed to acquire multifamily investor Bell Partners and combine its and BGO’s businesses under the BGO name.

In April, private equity giant Ares Management acquired Houston-based real estate investment trust Whitestone REIT, which is no longer a public company, for $1.7 billion in all cash.

The biggest deal of the year in terms of prominence (and industry gossip) has been Savills’ move to buy Roy March’s Eastdil Secured for $1.1 billion. Guggenheim Investments and Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings sold its shares in Eastdil to the real estate brokerage. The deal established U.K.-based Savills as a force in the U.S. market, where Eastdil had long been a dominant player.

“In Eastdil, we are buying the No. 1 player in the U.S. market,” Savills CEO Simon Shaw said in April. “What this does is significantly enhance our position in the eyes of investors globally to whom the enlarged firm will provide a serious choice of a full-service advisory firm.”

Isabelle Durso can be reached at idurso@commercialobserver.com.