Alex Knapp

The real estate portfolio for Norway’s central bank and one of the world’s top sovereign wealth funds consists of investments throughout 14 countries with a value of around $38.56 billion. What’s doubly astounding about that scope is that this real estate portfolio is only 1.7 percent of the fund’s total investments.

Norges works exclusively through partners on its real estate investments, and is aiming for a core-plus risk profile. The firm’s real estate investments are sector agnostic, and focused on Western Europe and North America.

Norges made several major announcements in early July, including a $500 million equity commitment as part of a new partnership with Asana Partners in what Norges called  “high-quality core/core-plus neighborhood retail assets throughout the U.S., including grocery-anchored centers, unanchored centers, street retail and mixed-use assets.” Norges also announced that developer and asset manager Stanhope would be managing Norges’ 2.4 million-square-foot, $5.3 billion portfolio of commercial assets in London and Paris.

The firm’s current investments in New York City include 95 percent of 1177 Avenue of the Americas in partnership with Beacon Capital Partners, and, with BXP, 45 percent stakes in 7 Times Square and 601 Lexington Avenue. Norges also holds a 45 percent stake in 11 Times Square in partnership with PGIM Real Estate and SJP Properties, and a 49.9 percent stake in 2 Herald Square alongside Nuveen Real Estate. Norges is also part of the joint venture that owns the 6 million-square-foot Hudson Square Properties office portfolio. 

Norges, too, has extensive industrial and other office investments around the country.

As massive a player as the fund is in real estate, in some ways it’s just getting started.

“We have secured a material expansion to our mandate which will make us a much more active player, especially in the private market real estate space,” Alex Knapp said. “We’re more diversified in terms of product types and geography, but we also expect a bit more from our real estate. We expect to be active in a broad range of verticals because at the moment we are under-allocated against our mandate.”