ABU DHABI: Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) is among the top five real estate investors in the world, a research report said, a sign of gulf sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) growing their alternate investments portfolio.
SWFs in the Gulf have helped diversify their economies away from oil and invest in a wide range of non-oil related assets. QIA, with $35bn investments in real estate is ranked fifth after Abu Dhabi (UAE), Netherlands, Germany and France.
QIA’s real estate investments include a stake in Empire State Realty Trust, the owners of the Empire State Building, to skyscrapers in London such as The Shard, and Canary Wharf.
“Not only have large institutional real estate investors become more ‘global’ in origin, they are investing more globally,” it said, citing data from IPE Real Assets.
“Institutional investors have been increasing their portfolio allocation to alternative investments including real estate,” it said, adding that real estate assets have helped provide a steady and diversified income stream to institutional portfolios as well as providing yield in the context of a low interest rate environment.
The IPE Real Estate list of top 100 real estate investors also underscored the arrival of new players mainly from the Middle East, Singapore, South Korea and China among the top 20.
