A highly selective and disciplined approach to real estate lending
With expertise dating back four decades, our end-to-end loan platform provides commercial real estate senior debt and whole loan financing for a wide range of property investors and developers. As one of the largest originators of real estate debt in Europe (Source: PFR Top European RED managers 2023), we have deep relationships across the market, allowing us to source attractive deals the broader market may not see. We take the view persistent excess returns come via excellent deal sourcing and a flexible but deliberately selective approach. We provide senior and junior financing to support the acquisition or development of properties across all major sectors (office, retail, industrial, leisure, healthcare, and living sector) across investment grade and non-investment grade assets in the UK and Europe. We also embrace newer sectors and structures that may offer ‘complexity’ or ‘novelty’ premia.
Why invest?
Real estate debt can offer investors a reliable income stream and stability of cash flows with additional diversification benefits. Our approach is focused on managing the downside, primarily by lending against core, essential assets with asset security and strong financial covenants. We also offer investors sustainable solutions, including sustainable transition loans, leveraging our independent credit and governance framework and non-binding environmental, social and governance integration.
Cash flow
Helpful for institutional investors with defined cash-flow criteria.
Diversification
Historic performance demonstrates diversification benefits versus liquid market opportunities.
Illiquidity premium
The private nature of the assets and networks needed to access them typically command an illiquidity premium over comparable liquid credits.
Security
High-quality collateral and strong covenant protection contribute to improved recovery rates in the event of default.
Key risks of real estate debt
Investment risk
The value of an investment and any income from it can go down as well as up. Where investments or loans are in other currencies or countries, values can fluctuate in response to changes in exchange rates. Investors may not get back the original amount invested.
Illiquidity risk
Certain assets held could, by nature, be hard to value or to sell at a desired time or at a price considered to be fair (especially in large quantities), and as a result their prices could be very volatile.
Complexity risk
Counterparties can be diverse, so successful investment requires appropriate credit analysis and the expertise to understand investment risks.
Investment insights
Investment thinking that brings together the collective insight of Aviva Investors’ teams from across the globe on the key themes influencing markets.
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Illiquidity premia in private debt: Q1 2025
16 May 2025
In our latest private markets deep dive, our research team crunches the data to see how evolving macro conditions are reflected in private debt returns.
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Private debt for DC pensions: The multi-sector opportunity
11 Feb. 2025
As the search for better retirement outcomes for the 28 million members of the UK’s defined contribution (DC) pension schemes continues, where are the opportunities for DC investors in private debt and how can they be harnessed?
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Relative value in private markets: Positive but selective
29 Jan. 2025
Using proprietary data, our private markets research team compares risk and return across sectors.
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Illiquidity premia in private debt: Q4 2024
27 Jan. 2025
In our latest private markets deep dive, our research team crunches the data to see how evolving macroeconomic conditions are reflected in private debt returns.
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Illiquidity premia in private debt: Q3 2024
30 Oct. 2024
In our latest private markets deep dive, our research team crunches the data to see how evolving macro conditions are reflected in private debt returns.
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Illiquidity premia in private debt: Q2 2024
6 Aug. 2024
In our latest real assets deep dive, our research team explains how our data on illiquidity premia indicates the benefits of a multi-asset approach to private debt investing.
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Relative value in real assets: A spectrum of opportunities
2 Aug. 2024
Our real assets research team drills into proprietary data to compare risk and return across sectors.
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Illiquidity premia in private debt: Q4 2023
12 Mar. 2024
In our latest real assets deep dive, our research team crunches the data to see how evolving macro conditions are reflected in private debt returns.
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Common ground: Earning a social licence to operate in real asset investing
18 Jan. 2024
Successful real asset investing requires acceptance of asset managers’ practices and procedures from a variety of stakeholders. We explore what this means for managers, their clients and investment outcomes.
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Plus ça change…The outlook for infrastructure debt in 2024
11 Jan. 2024
Infrastructure demonstrated characteristic resilience in 2023 in the face of significant macroeconomic headwinds. Darryl Murphy from our infrastructure team explains why he expects current themes to persist in 2024.
Seizing the moment: The outlook for real estate debt
Gregor Bamert, Sima Kotecha and Nick Solomon discuss the recovery in real estate debt markets in 2024 and the opportunities emerging.
Private Markets Study 2025
In the seventh edition of the study, we collected the views of 500 institutional investors around the world. We delved into some of the key questions facing private market investors today: Why do they invest in private markets? How do they expect the asset classes to perform over the next few years? What are the biggest barriers to investing today? And how do they incorporate sustainability?
House View
No one can predict the future. But our quarterly House View sets out the collective wisdom of our investment teams on the current state of global markets – and where they might be heading.
Real estate debt team
Meet our real estate debt investment team.
Gregor Bamert
Head of Real Estate Debt
Sima Kotecha
Head of High Yield Strategies
Explore
Private markets
As one of Europe’s largest private markets investment managers, we have the scale to access the full depth and breadth of private markets.
Real estate
Outcome-oriented solutions in real estate, across equity debt and long income, through strategies that span the risk spectrum, from lower-risk options generating long-term income to more opportunistic investments.