QuadReal's Jay Kwan Talks Strategy and More
We cover Jay’s global journey from humble beginnings in LA, to Lehman Brothers, to leading international investment teams at Soros and TPG, and now spearheading QuadReal’s growth across Europe. Jay shares hard-won lessons on capital cycles, navigating workouts, and building trust-based partnerships across multiple markets.
He breaks down the thinking behind QuadReal’s platform strategy, sector convictions, and how they deploy long-term capital flexibly across the risk curve. If you're interested in global real estate investing, institutional capital, platform-building, or market timing, this episode is worth your time.
Key Topics Covered in This Episode:
- Breaking into real estate through Lehman Brothers and surviving the “Squid Game” analyst culling
- Gaining an edge through international experience across Asia, Europe, the US and Russia
- Learning through workouts, restructurings and JV fallouts that shaped his investment approach
- Building QuadReal in Europe from scratch. First hires, first deals, and their conviction-led strategy
- Why cultural and ethical alignment matter more than strategy
- Want to partner with QuadReal? Jay shares what they look for in an operating partner
- Navigating market uncertainty and geopolitical risk while staying agile
- The myth of permanence and how sectors can shift faster than expected
- Why you shouldn’t chase a pay cheque, instead focus on stacking skills, take international chances, and look for asymmetric opportunities.
And finally... With £500m to invest, which People, what Property, and which Place would he choose?
This is a fantastic interview which I will recommend every student who aspires to enter finance and to seasoned professionals.
Jay Kwan is obviously a very intelligent real estate investor but what impressed me most is his poise, humility and communication skills relaying a lot of great information and explaining in detail his job experiences and how he decided to join QuadReal right after it was set up, leaving a great job at TPG (around minute 24) .
As he states, he's very proud of the team they built and what QuadReal represents in Europe.
At 38, he took a risk leaving TPG to join QuadReal but the attractiveness of setting up his own team and deploying hundreds of millions in capital in an integrated platform attracted him.
He also had a good chat with Dennis Lopez, QuadReal's CEO, and that sealed the deal.
Anyway, very strong background and he's not the only one at QuadReal with experience at Lehman Brothers. Peter Kim, Managing Director, International Real Estate, Asia also also spent 11 years in the investment banking and fixed income divisions at Lehman Brothers where he built and led the bank’s real estate investment banking team in Asia.
[Note: Lehman had the best real estate and fixed income team back then but the firm was levered to the hilt on CDOs which led to its downfall as it wasn't saved during the GFC.]
All of QuadReal's senior leadership team has very impressive backgrounds and experience, and that in itself speaks volumes about Dennis Lopez for being able to attract them there.
Dennis himself has a very impressive background:
A seasoned real estate professional, Dennis has an extensive track record of global investments and brings deep relationships with real estate industry leaders and major institutional investors to QuadReal.
Dennis has been actively involved in real estate for over 30 years and has worked in the Americas, Asia and Europe. He has significant experience in real estate M&A, acquisitions, lending, developments and capital fundraising in both the public and private markets. Prior to joining QuadReal, Dennis was CIO of AXA IM – Real Assets, the fifth largest global real estate investment manager, based in Paris. In his combined roles at QuadReal and AXA, he has approved over $100 billion of acquisitions and loans. Previously, he served as the CEO of SUN Real Estate Group, a private equity firm based in Delhi and Moscow. Dennis spent his earlier career as the Global Head of Real Estate at Cambridge Place, a London-based hedge fund, and as Managing Director and European Head of Real Estate Investment Banking at JP Morgan in London.
Back to Jay Kwan's interview, he explains how they hired their team early on when they were relatively unknown, and as they started getting traction on the investment front, they started getting more quality resumes and he slowly built up his team.
Around minute 29, he explains how the strategy at QuadReal evolved over time from joint ventures with local partners and now they have annual strategy reviews on where they want to be and who they want to work with. The regional heads then translate that into making money.
He also gives a nice example where they like residential but regulations are onerous in most of continental Europe so they prefer sticking to the UK where regulations are a lot less onerous there.
Their job is to understand the strategy, then find the partners to help them execute on that strategy creating joint ventures. "Today we have nine joint ventures, eight in equity, one is in credit, and the majority of the AUM is in industrial and residential and the balance is in some legacy funds and also in office buildings."
He goes on to state: "The way we think about partnerships, first of all, there needs to be moral, cultural and ethical alignment, there's a lot of ways to make money, just a question of how you want to make money. "
The how is important given who their clients are and while they are flexible around partnerships, it really comes down to the people and the team with a solid track record.
Finally, co-investments are important, they want to see meaningful investments from their partners in the ventures they invest in.
He also explains how they need to differentiate themselves as a capital group, finding things that they can do that others can't to attract top partners.
As far as sector allocation, they don't have set weights, they find value where great opportunities lie but are cognizant of over-concentration. Still, they like industrial, residential, student housing, data centers, storage and credit.
In terms of indicators, he explains long-term intrinsic value of an asset relative to short-term price swings and they do think about where they are in the cycle in terms of GDP, inflation, etc.
They are also focused on having the majority of their AUM managed internally or wholly owned vehicles so they have more control and retain the fees and profits for their clients.
"It's a $94 billion business with 1900 people, we have the scale and infrastructure to then extend marginally into different sectors and regions to internalize management."
Lastly, he explains why in this uncertain environment, they're looking for sectors that are less exposed to cyclical swings or to macro and geopolitical tensions and gives the UK BTR (build-to-rent) sector as one they like right now.
He states that they're a little more cautious on industrial right now because it has more tie to macro, trade and geopolitical risks.
Student housing is another one where you have more certainty because despite what's going on in the world, students need safe, secure housing with amenities.
Again, he explains why your entry point is equally as important as what you want to buy.
Anyway, take the time to watch the entire interview, this guy is a star in every respect and if I was hiring a head of real estate for a large fund, I'd definitely put him on my short list (he is likely on the short list to succeed Dennis Lopez).
I highly recommend all students, associates and seasoned professionals take the time to listen to this interview, one of the best you'll ever come across in finance.
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