The Real Assets Investment Team focuses on global real asset investment opportunities that have the potential to generate consistent distribution yields and compelling risk-adjusted total returns. We remain highly selective, while seeking to deploy capital in situations in which we believe we have a competitive advantage in gaining access to and evaluating high-quality assets alongside leading general partners and operators. We believe this approach, coupled with thoughtful and deliberate portfolio construction, provides our clients with diversified and well-managed exposure to global real assets.
- Highly selective, investing in only 1.3% of $57B+ worth of transactions reviewed from 2018-2020
- Actively investing in real assets since 1999, the team today manages more than $8.9 billion of AUM and $127.0 billion of AUS
- Unique access within the sector due to investment relationships with 430+ individual managers, leading to visibility on differentiated, often off-market opportunities across sub-sectors1
Case Studies
Project Fairway
The Challenge
In 2018, Hamilton Lane was offered the opportunity to purchase a large global portfolio of core infrastructure assets from an industrial company alongside the existing team. Hamilton Lane’s real assets and secondary teams both spent a considerable amount of time reviewing the assets and were in a good position to act quickly to purchase a substantial interest in the assets when they came around for a second time with a new sponsor.
The portfolio originally contained nearly 40 infrastructure assets across the globe, with numerous counterparties and unique market positions. It was also a corporate carve-out, which added additional complexity.
The HL Approach
Hamilton Lane was one of the few parties able to underwrite and structure the opportunity within the time allotted. The real assets team worked closely with the secondary team to perform due diligence and marshal capital, ultimately assembling an asset-by-asset underwriting for the entire global portfolio, leading to approval for a substantial investment by numerous Hamilton Lane clients.The Outcome
Project Fairway represents a sizeable portfolio of core infrastructure assets and has generally performed ahead of plan. At entry in 2018, the vast majority of future cash flows were contracted with high-quality counterparties, leading to a stable yield on the portfolio.Project Saber
The Challenge
Project Saber is a co-investment opportunity presented to Hamilton Lane by one of its existing infrastructure relationships. The transaction involved a curtailed diligence timeframe and the purchase of a public company that was in a broken auction process. The assets had been undermanaged, but their footprint gave the system substantial strategic importance. The price was compelling and our partners had the necessary skillset for the value-add strategy.The HL Approach
Due to Hamilton Lane’s familiarity with the manager and the assets, we were rapidly able to determine that there was opportunity for the investor consortium to add value to the assets. We also held existing relationships with several of the unsuccessful bidders who were happy to share information as a cross-check.The Outcome
Hamilton Lane participated in the Project Saber transaction and the take-private occurred in early March 2020. Hamilton Lane’s ability to underwrite the transaction alongside the general partners was key to closing on time.The Exchange on Erwin
The Challenge
Hamilton Lane sourced a complex real estate investment opportunity that consisted of a four-story mixed-use building with ground floor retail (40,000 sq. ft.), office (57,000 sq. ft.), 16 duplex housing units, a 631 space parking garage and 5 acres of land slated for a 265-unit multifamily development.The HL Approach
Hamilton Lane was able to source this attractive opportunity directly from a long-time manager relationship that had a demonstrated skillset and property-type specific expertise for mixed-use value-added activity combined with multifamily development.The Outcome
Hamilton Lane committed capital to the opportunity in 2015 and had a realization in November of 2019.
We leverage our global platform, information advantages and deep sector expertise in real estate, infrastructure and natural resources to identify what we believe to be the best risk-adjusted investment opportunities for our clients and managed accounts.
Co-Head of Real Assets
Greater insight driven by a robust technology platform
Hamilton Lane’s continued investment in private markets technology solutions provides unparalleled access to information including a database with more than 4,600 funds, 1,600 unique managers, and 60,000+ companies, properties and assets. Further, each year the firm participates in over 1,000 meetings with general partners on average, and reviews 900+ PPMs. Together, these insights help enable Hamilton Lane to be a more informed investor and a valuable strategic partner to managers, thereby providing access to unique opportunities.