NBIM’s Knapp: ‘You’ll see Norges do things it hasn’t historically done’

PERE’s annual Europe Forum in London brought together some of the region’s largest and most influential investors and managers to discuss where private real estate is headed – from capital flows and consolidation to how allocators are rethinking risk across sectors, geographies and investment structures.

Among the standout sessions was a keynote interview with Alex Knapp, global head of real estate at Norges Bank Investment Management, manager of the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund. Speaking with PERE senior editor Evelyn Lee, Knapp laid out how NBIM, which holds roughly $60 billion in public and private real estate, is taking a more dynamic approach to the asset class after significantly widening its investment mandate.

On this episode of The PERE Podcast, host McKenna Leavens brings listeners into that conversation, which also covers NBIM’s recent majority-stake purchase of eight shopping centers in Spain, a roughly €1.4 billion deal that he calls “the tip of the iceberg” for the fund's broader property ambitions. Knapp also breaks down the criteria NBIM is using to evaluate managers in pursuit of operational excellence, specialism and alignment as it seeks to scale its portfolio and revamp performance after multiple years of “mixed returns” from real estate.

For more from Alex Knapp, read PERE’s September issue cover story here.