Global M&A trends in real estate and real assets

In the second half of 2026, real assets M&A will be shaped by a more disciplined search for value. Interest rate expectations have shifted since the start of the year, and refinancing risk, maturity walls, and valuation gaps continue to affect deal timing. Capital is still available, but investors are looking harder at where returns can be created through resilient income, operational upside, and access to scarce inputs such as power, data, and credit.

Infrastructure and infrastructure-adjacent assets are attracting a disproportionate share of capital, but this is not a wholesale move away from traditional real estate. Capital is still active where scale, housing demand, pricing resets, or consolidation logic is clear. Recent real estate investment trust (REIT) activity reinforces the point, notably AvalonBay and Equity Residential’s approximately $69bn merger of equals, creating a multifamily platform with more than 180,000 rental apartments and a stated focus on operational scale, technology, data-driven insights, and capital allocation. Several other REIT transactions were announced in early 2026, including public-to-private deals.

Beyond traditional property types, investors are pursuing assets and platforms such as logistics, real estate credit, and data centres. Ares’s acquisition of a German logistics portfolio from Blackstone for approximately $1.2bn shows continued demand for well-located logistics infrastructure assets in major European markets. Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance’s approximately $9bn commercial real estate loan-portfolio sale to Athene illustrates how real estate credit is becoming an active transaction channel. In Asia Pacific, KKR and Singtel’s agreement to acquire ST Telemedia Global Data Centres at an enterprise value of approximately $10.9bn reflects continued investor demand for scaled digital infrastructure.

The common thread is convergence. Real assets investors are increasingly connecting property, infrastructure, energy, and technology in the same investment thesis. Data centre development depends on power access. Private credit depends on collateral quality and asset-level cash flow. Platform value increasingly depends on proprietary data and execution capability. The next phase of real assets M&A will reward investors that can bring together capital, power, data, and operating expertise through the right assets and partnerships.

The Middle East remains an important focus for global real assets investors, bringing together sovereign capital, demographic growth, economic diversification, and rising demand for digital and urban infrastructure. Near-term volatility from regional conflicts may affect pricing, timing, and risk appetite, but it is also reinforcing the importance of resilient infrastructure, energy security, and supply chain reliability. As infrastructure priorities evolve, reconstruction and resilience-related investment may become a more important component of future capital deployment.

PwC’s 2026 TransAct Middle East report points to a region whose economic fundamentals remain resilient, with regional GDP expanding by around 3.2% in 2025. In PwC’s 29th Global CEO Survey, Middle East CEOs identified Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt as offering the strongest intra-regional investment potential, and dealmaking activity in 2025 was concentrated across these three markets. This underscores the Middle East’s role as a self-reinforcing investment ecosystem.

In February 2026, Property Finder, a Middle East property portal, announced a $170m investment from a consortium of UAE-based sovereign wealth and venture capital funds. This is one example of the above trend, showing how sovereign and regional capital is backing digital real estate platforms as data, transparency, and consumer insight become more important to growth.

The scale of the opportunity is significant. For investors, the most attractive opportunities are likely to be those that align long-term capital with operating expertise, development capability, technology, and local market knowledge. Real assets will continue to benefit from regional transformation agendas, but successful execution will require patience and strong local partnerships.

Capital precision replaces broad market beta

Capital is available for real assets, but it is becoming more disciplined. Investors are looking harder at where they take risk, how they enter the capital stack, and whether returns are supported by durable income, strong collateral, and operational upside. That focus matters more as rate expectations shift. At the beginning of the year, many investors expected borrowing costs to ease. Today, the path is less certain, with refinancing risk, maturity walls, and valuation gaps still affecting deal timing.

Private credit is now a more important part of the real assets M&A story. PwC’s 2026 Global Private Credit Survey notes that private credit now spans more than corporate direct lending, with asset-backed finance, infrastructure debt, real estate debt, distressed debt, and specialty finance becoming increasingly prominent. CVC’s acquisition of Marathon Asset Management, a global credit manager, underscores continued demand for scaled credit capabilities, including the ability to deploy capital across more complex and asset-backed opportunities. While stress in the broader private credit market remains a concern, real estate private credit can have different risk characteristics because it is often supported by collateral value, asset-level cash flow, loan-to-value discipline, and lender protections.

For real estate investors, this means M&A may increasingly happen through the capital stack, not only through asset sales. Loan portfolio sales, recapitalisations, preferred equity, rescue capital, and continuation vehicles can help owners address liquidity, refinancing, and capital return needs while allowing investors to stay exposed to assets with longer-term upside.

Power as a transaction catalyst

Power access is becoming a deal catalyst across real assets. Data centres are the clearest example, but similar logic applies to advanced manufacturing, logistics, industrial outdoor storage, and infrastructure-linked development. The value of a site increasingly depends on whether power can be secured, delivered, and scaled. Grid access, interconnection rights, energy storage, cooling, and power procurement are becoming core parts of the investment thesis.

PwC’s Global Infrastructure Outlook 2025–50 highlights the scale of the power investment required. Annual spending on power infrastructure is forecast to rise 79%, from $631bn in 2024 to $1.1tn by 2050. Cumulative spending is projected to reach $25tn, supporting generation, storage, and transmission and distribution as electrification, AI workloads, and power-hungry data centres increase demand.

Investors are increasingly structuring deals around access to capacity, whether through asset acquisitions, partnerships, development platforms, or long-term power arrangements. In the US, Riot Platforms and CleanSpark announced land acquisitions tied to large-scale data centre development and long-term power access. In Europe, KKR and Oak Hill Capital committed nearly $2bn to Global Technical Realty to accelerate expansion of a European build-to-suit data centre platform. In Asia Pacific, KKR and Singtel’s agreement to acquire ST Telemedia Global Data Centres gives them exposure to a scaled platform across Asia and Europe. 

The capital requirements are substantial. Power generation, grid upgrades, cooling infrastructure, and land development require upfront investment, long timelines, and complex stakeholder coordination. For investors, speed to power is becoming a differentiator. Assets with grid access, contracted demand, and a credible path to near-term capacity are likely to remain attractive.

The exit question is also becoming more important. Today’s capital is funding a rapid buildout, but as computing becomes more efficient or technical requirements change, investors will need to identify who the future buyers are, how durable AI-related demand will be, and whether today’s assets can adapt. Assets with power certainty, flexible design, contracted revenues, and credible pathways to reuse or upgrade are likely to be better positioned when early investors look to recapitalise or exit.

Data becomes deal infrastructure

Data is becoming a more important source of value in real assets M&A. Real asset platforms have always generated large volumes of information across leasing, capital markets, valuations, tenant behaviour, construction, and asset management. What is changing is the ability to organise that information, combine it with external data, and use AI-enabled workflows to turn it into faster sourcing, underwriting, and portfolio decisions.

This shift is already visible across many of the largest real estate services firms, where data is being positioned as both a client service tool and an operating model advantage. JLL’s Accelerate 2030 strategy is built around what the company describes as proprietary data, a unified platform, industry intelligence and AI competency. Cushman & Wakefield is also embedding data, analytics and AI into its operating model, moving from locally held data and siloed workflows toward a globally connected platform designed to support capital markets, leasing and client decision-making. 

For real assets investors, the implication is that data is becoming part of the deal thesis, not just part of the diligence process. Data-rich platforms may be better positioned to source opportunities, evaluate assets, and manage portfolios after closing. In markets where transparency and transaction data are still developing, this can be especially valuable.

Real assets dealmaking is increasingly dependent on platforms that combine proprietary information, trusted analytics, human judgement, and repeatable execution. Buyers that can access better data and embed it into their investment processes may be able to see opportunities earlier, diligence them faster, and manage them more actively.

M&A momentum for traditional real estate asset classes of office, industrial, retail, residential, and mixed-use slowed in the first quarter of 2026 after improving through 2025, with deal volumes down 5% compared to the first quarter of 2025 but down 52% compared to the last quarter of 2025. Deal values were up 8% compared to the first quarter of 2025 but were down 46% on the last quarter of 2025. The quarter-on-quarter pullback reflects the volatility in traditional real estate asset classes, while capital continues to rotate towards infrastructure and infrastructure-adjacent assets that are not fully captured in the chart above. 

Real assets M&A in the second half of 2026 will be strongest where deals solve a specific need or constraint, such as access to power, scale, data advantage, operational performance, or refinancing pressure. Capital is available, but the higher cost of capital will put buyers’ financing assumptions in the spotlight. Dealmakers are operating in a more complex cycle, with more interdependencies across capital, energy, infrastructure, technology, and real estate.