Client story: Swiss Life Asset Managers Nordic

The context:

As a market leader in real estate investment management, Swiss Life Asset Managers Nordic facilitates direct investments and private real estate funds in the Nordics. With one of the largest property portfolios in the region, the firm actively manages around EUR 1.6bn AUM in four active funds.  The company’s eight core-plus funds launched since 2005 have been successfully repaid to investors returning 17% IRR on average. In 2021, Swiss Life Asset Managers Nordic was featured as one of the most consistent top-performing private real estate fund managers in Preqin’s global real estate report.*  In Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark, the company leverages hands-on asset management capabilities to enhance returns of properties and projects throughout its investment program. Using a long-term approach, the company actively manages a broad-based real estate investment portfolio, with target returns typically between 8 to 15%.  These activities centre on building a diversified portfolio with downside protection based on long-term investment that reaps rewards in the near term. This results in attractive risk-adjusted investor returns and semi-annual dividends. *Listed under the firm's pre-acquisition name: NRP Asset Management.

The challenge:

The company was formed in 2021 when the real estate business of investment firm Ness, Risan & Partners (NRP) was acquired by Swiss Life Asset Managers. Both Swiss Life Asset Managers and NRP were existing Preqin customers, but the merger provided an excellent opportunity for the firm to rediscover how they could use Preqin’s data and insights to their advantage. “We used to be more of a boutique company, but now we have quickly become part of something much bigger,” explained Ove Christian Norheim, Head Funds and Asset Management at the firm. “We have always used Preqin’s data and contacts to reach investors and placement agents, but the merger gave us the opportunity to explore some new functionality.” “Preqin is already a well-established name in private equity and in the Nordics, so we wanted to see how we could use it to benchmark ourselves against our peers,” he continued. “With so many of our competitors using it, we knew that it might be a great tool to compare our performance both on a regional and global scale.”  

The solution:

The merger saw the firm re-onboard and engage with Preqin’s account management and support teams. Throughout this process, they identified a number of new ways to map their market and keep an eye on the competition.According to Andreas Mayer, Head of Real Estate Investor Services at Swiss Life Asset Managers Nordic, “Preqin’s onboarding process wasn’t complicated at all – we got our logins, and everything worked straight away. The company was even able to offer tutorials for those that needed it, which made it much easier for them to navigate the platform.”“Many of our teams use Preqin for investor research, but they’re now using it more often to research our competitors. For example, they might look at what funds have recently launched and are raising equity, or to evaluate what investment strategies seem to be performing well in the market.”“Some of our funds have quite a unique structure in the Nordic market, so we needed to know that we were aligned with wider European practices,” added Ove. “In terms of benchmarking our results, Preqin gave us the tools to look at our clients and competitors.”

Why Swiss Life Asset Managers Nordic chose Preqin

• For the entirety of their relationship with Preqin, the firm has used Preqin’s industry-leading data and contact information for investor research and outreach.

• More recently, Preqin’s range of benchmarking solutions – particularly those that include IRR data – have enabled them to further optimize their fundraising in a competitive market.

• With access to data-driven content, including exclusive research and wider-industry insights, the firm is able to explore new ways to refine their services.

The result:

After a few years working together, the teams at Swiss Life Asset Managers Nordic are happy to recommend Preqin. “The ability to calculate and compare different datapoints for performance has been really useful,” said Ove. “As a result, we’re able to offer a much more competitive service to our clients, and ultimately stand out from the crowd.”“With all the help we received, the overall opinion at Swiss Life Asset Managers is that Preqin is very knowledgeable and helpful. If we ever have a question, you’re always quick to get back to us – and so in terms of customer service things are working very well.”Summarizing their relationship with Preqin, Ove had this to say: “We were approached by two investors purely because of our mutual connection to Preqin. We hadn’t heard of them before, and now they’ve become some of our largest investors.”

About Swiss Life Asset Managers Nordic

Swiss Life Asset Managers Nordic is a market leader in real estate management, facilitating direct investments and private real estate funds in Norway and the wider Nordic region. Their projects are shaped by close collaboration and communication with a wide range of players: from investors and property owners to real estate developers, brokers, advisors, and banks. Guided by a wealth of experience and expertise, they take a responsible approach to enabling direct investments and managing real estate funds on behalf of their clients. With a strong financial foundation, they help clients to achieve their long-term investment objectives – so when it comes to the future, they’re in the driving seat.