Q&A: Fiera’s Expansion into Spain

Charles Allen, Head of European Real Estate recently spoke with Green Street News about our continued expansion into Spain. Building on our established presence and strong local network, we are focussed on scaling our portfolios and capturing opportunities in real estate sectors that are supported by structural supply, demographic tailwinds and stable income profiles.

You entered Spain with a debt deal in March 2024 and now have a Madrid office. What are your ambitions in Iberia?

Our focus on Iberia is part of Fiera Capital’s wider private markets push into Southern Europe, where we see a lot of opportunities across different sectors and asset classes. Fiera Real Estate has been deploying debt capital in Spain for nearly three years. It’s a market we’re very familiar with and where we have strong networks as our team has built large portfolios in their former roles before moving across to Fiera to launch our debt platform in 2023.

The opening of Madrid was an important part of Fiera Real Estate’s pan-European expansion. The office is currently supporting our debt strategy, where we are lending against high-quality assets backed by strong sponsors in the residential-led and logistics sectors.

Our focus is very much on the mid-market, where we believe there is a compelling story around supply/demand imbalance and limited funding competition. Alternative lenders are playing an increasingly important role in addressing this supply/demand imbalance by funding the build of institutional quality stock.

Non-bank lenders comprise just a fraction of the total funding market in Iberia, so we feel our early move has given us a competitive advantage.

Are you planning to launch new strategies on the equity side?

Yes, we’re looking at ways we can access the Spanish real estate equity market in partnership with Packaged Living, where we are a shareholder.

Packaged Living is a leading sustainable living specialist spanning investment and development of rental homes, having developed over 3m sq ft of purpose-built housing and with a pipeline of over 5,000 homes across the multi-family, single-family, garden-style, co-living and flex-living sectors.

We’re currently in the early stages stage but we feel we have a real opportunity to leverage our expertise and proven track record in the delivery of investment-grade, purpose-built living assets, exporting it to a market where there are parallels in the investment thesis.

Much like the UK, Spain’s residential market is characterised by low levels of institutional product and an undersupply of fit-for-purpose homes. Urbanisation and affordability pressures are pronounced and ownership in the market is highly fragmented.

This is seen against growing demand at an occupier and investor level. We can respond to appetite for investment with predictable, inflation-linked income and the opportunity for alpha generation in the form of a development premium.

Can you give an update on your Fiera European real estate debt platform?

Across the fund and SMAs (separately managed accounts), we’ve moved from a standing start in 2023 to a portfolio of 12 transactions in the UK and Spain, totalling around £450m of commitments.

We have a very healthy pipeline heading into 2026 and our loan book is fully performing, with sponsors hitting key milestones and business plans moving along in line with underwriting expectations.

We are targeting mid-market opportunities backed by best-in-class sponsors and defensive real estate with the strongest underlying fundamentals. Maintaining that strict focus on asset quality, sponsor alignment and downside protection, to our mind, is the safest way to ensure a resilient portfolio from the outset – and where debt and equity interests are aligned.

Where are the next opportunities to invest on behalf of the platform and where could you replicate what you’re in the process of building in Iberia?

Our main focus is on scaling our portfolios in the UK and Iberia, but we also see potential in other developed markets such as Germany. The same characteristics that attracted us to Spain and the UK are present there: strong sponsor demand, the growing institutionalisation of real estate and the changing role of traditional lenders creating an opening for specialist providers.

Europe is a deeply fragmented market, but what’s common across the region is the plentiful opportunities to invest in real estate that is supported by structural supply, demographic tailwinds and stable income profiles.

What do you think are the three main topics that will dominate 2026?

AI and the digitalisation of the economy are only going to accelerate so investors will be looking for ways to extract value from that. This doesn’t have to be in data centres – notwithstanding the fact that many will be priced out of that market.

Innovation clusters will grow across major UK and European cities and demand for regeneration will accelerate. There will be pressure on local housing markets, creating opportunities for residential development, while AI-enabled production and e-commerce growth will reinforce demand for modern industrial space, strengthening investment appetite for logistics and light industrial assets supporting digital growth.

We believe debt will be an interesting sector to observe as competition in the market heats up. As capital flows increase, competition will intensify and lenders will need to differentiate through more innovative structuring, tailored financing solutions and products that better align with borrower needs.

Finally, I think we’ll see divergence in the way that investors think about portfolio construction. We’re already seeing more interest in a total portfolio approach, or a holistic approach to risk management, while some institutions have made clear they will be sticking to a strategic asset allocation approach.