Ignore alternative sectors at your own peril

Ignore alternative sectors at your own peril, warns Axel Vespermann, head of real estate at Universal Investment.

The COVID-19 crisis has disrupted lives and economies, and it continues to impact investments, leading to shifting demand and changing priorities.

This is none more true than in the traditional alternative property sectors, which are now being increasingly viewed as mainstream asset classes.

These lessons can be found in Universal-Investment’s 2021 annual survey of large institutional investors. With total assets of around €65.1 billion and a real estate portfolio of some €14.8 billion, the survey’s participants have shown how much the pandemic has impacted different sectors in different ways.

With a growing number of investors preferring to invest in secure assets rather than riskier opportunities, it appears contradictory to dismiss asset classes such as healthcare, senior living, or logistics as “niche assets” when, in fact, the