Real Estate

Closely connected for
enhanced outcomes

At a glance

$ 0 bn1
AUM
$ bn2
Total GDV
0
First real estate investment

Source: Federated Hermes as at 30 September 2023. 1Includes AUM plus non-fee paying undrawn capital ($0.5bn). 2Total Gross Development Value of all projects currently in development and being managed by Federated Hermes Real Estate. 3Over last 10 years: $1.4bn of acquisitions, $4.0bn of sales. The value of investments and income from them may go down as well as up and you may not get back the original amount invested.

Placemaking: Coal Drops Yard, King’s Cross

Chris Taylor
Quote

We believe that a responsible, sustainable approach to real estate investment management is the only strategy which can help both protect and enhance the value of our clients’ assets, now and in the future.

Why Federated Hermes Real Estate?

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MEPC and Federated Hermes

MEPC is the specialist real estate development and asset operating platform within the Federated Hermes Private Markets business.

We enjoy a long track record of delivering meaningful and sustainable placemaking schemes that not only generate long-term financial outcomes, but also positive societal and environmental impact.

As a single organisation since 2020, our combined conviction continues to be the creation of new places where people will choose to work, visit and live, through developments that are innately focused on communities. This ethos of inclusivity and a sense of belonging that helps create the 'meaningful places' of the future.

The combination of MEPC's track record of successful placemaking and approach to partnership fits seamlessly together with the heritage in sustainable real estate investment of Federated Hermes, providing the solid foundation from which new places can flourish.

Urban regeneration

Our established track record in placemaking and urban regeneration puts us at the forefront of industry efforts to create sustainable spaces that meet the needs of people, occupiers and our clients.

By targeting high-potential investment opportunities with strong fundamentals, we aim to deliver superior client outcomes along with long-term social value and positive change.

We invest with vision and creativity. We see every site as an opportunity to create exceptional places that evolve with the people who use them, as we seek to create value for our partners, today and into the future.

ESG at every opportunity

Responsibility and integrity are at the heart of everything we do. Looking beyond standard industry ESG parameters, we seek to implement strategies that deliver real-world outcomes for investors, society and the environment.

Our approach to sustainability is built on four pillars: nature positivity, lasting social impact, resilient partnerships and community enhancement. These pillars allow us to incorporate a broad spectrum of relevant ESG considerations – from biodiversity and climate change to impact and wellbeing – enabling us to seek to ensure that every decision we make contributes to delivering the outcomes our clients, occupiers and communities care about.

We believe the buildings and communities we create are integral to the development of more inclusive regional growth. Further, our holistic approach including biodiversity and climate resilience considerations, ensure that human impact and natural ecosystems are balanced carefully. We want our assets to create a better living and working environment for communities now and for future generations.

Untapping potential

Transformational real estate that successfully delivers long-term returns for investors cannot be achieved by investors alone. Our mission is to reshape the way that institutional investors partner and engage with people, places, communities and their councils and policy-makers.

On our held assets, we continuously strive to ensure active asset management can deliver real world growth and improvements not just for our occupiers but on behalf of our clients.

We think in terms of connectivity, and our close, differentiated approach to working with the public sector is fundamental to the success of the developments we have historically delivered for our clients. These long-term relationships with communities and their elected representatives help ensure that the needs of local people are at the core of our vision for every opportunity we invest in.

How we invest

Our client-focused investments are offered through four strategic growth pillars, each of which draw on our deep expertise in investing in global real estate:

Urban regeneration

Our placemaking strategy is founded on the principles of inclusivity, transformation, and investing for the long-term benefit of communities and our clients. Our innovative urban regeneration offering is delivered by MEPC, our specialist development and asset operating platform. Key developments in this investment pillar include NOMA in Manchester, Wellington Place in Leeds and Paradise in Birmingham.

The vision for all of our regeneration projects is to create a purposeful and forward-thinking places, by connecting people: to each other, to a sense of heritage and local pride, and to new ways of working and living.

Paradise – the story so far

To see this vision becoming a reality, watch the video on the right:

Client-driven real estate

Drawing on 40+ years of experience, we seek to deliver future-focused real estate solutions which adapt to our clients’ needs or requirements, across all market conditions. We are adaptive, agile and our long track record is built on deep relationships and networks which position us to access some of the best market opportunities on behalf of our clients. We are looking to the future of our industry and how we can best effect change in the built environment to deliver sustainable, long-term outcomes for our investors via the creation and ongoing management of relevant and resilient real estate.

Images: Investing across the Office, Industrial and Retail Sectors

Storage building and parking with cars

Build to Rent Residential

Broad demographic and societal shifts, combined with a lack of affordability of home ownership continue to underpin the persistent demand for the Build to Rent sector (‘BTR’).

Our BTR strategy focuses on the mid-market, and our non-domestic investment into BTR has accelerated our understanding of investment value and operational excellence.

Hestia, our residential operations platform, provides a cohesive solution for occupiers, helping to enhance retention and reletting. The platform embodies Federated Hermes’ Responsible Property Investment agenda by sourcing and developing homes in neighbourhoods people want to live in, to a specification built on an 8 year operational track-record. Our BTR assets use innovative construction methods that aim to ensure a fast track to decarbonisation, with an ambitious target for net zero operational carbon by 2030, well ahead of our peers.

Schemes in this investment pillar are designed to encourage community and deliver continued social impact and include the Cargo Building in Liverpool and Pomona Wharf in Manchester.

Top image: The Cargo Building, Liverpool
Bottom image: Mercer West Madison East, Leeds

Building and building interior

Life sciences and technology

Our expertise lies in facilitating the growth of science, business, and technology companies on our estates — giving rise to exceptional places that grow and evolve over time. As centres of excellence in science and technology, our business parks include Milton Park, Oxford, and Silverstone Park, Towcester.

Top image: Milton Park
Bottom image: Silverstone Park

Explore our projects in more detail

These case studies illustrate our impact and success in transforming places, supporting communities as we seek to deliver results for our clients.

King’s Cross, London

King’s Cross, London

Globally recognised transformative real estate
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King’s Cross, London
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King’s Cross

From red-light to economic halo: the regeneration of King’s Cross

The regeneration of King’s Cross is a globally recognised example of the transformative power of real estate, offering a blueprint for delivering social, environmental and economic impact through sustainable placemaking. The development is a flagship of our portfolio, a testament to our team’s commitment to delivering long-term outcomes for our clients.

King’s Cross is a historically and culturally significant inner London district, home to the British Library, the Regent’s Canal, and a transportation gateway to the rest of the UK, Europe and – for the literary minded – magical worlds!

Once a busy industrial hub, the area’s warehouses slowly fell out of use as London’s economy shifted towards finance. During the last decades of the last century, King’s Cross would become known as the city’s prime red-light district, attracting drugs, homelessness and crime. The area was at its most alive at night, and by day there was little in the way of community left.

After many failed regeneration attempts in the 1980s and 90s, Argent and Federated Hermes acquired the 67-acre brownfield site in 2000. The £3bn regeneration programme that followed focused on unlocking the nascent economic opportunity of the area, reviving the communities that had been silenced by its decline, while breathing life back into the unique natural environment that surrounded the canal.

Thirty-five emerging and established architects were enlisted to transform the patchwork of rail and warehouses into a pageant of leading-edge post-industrial architecture.

By engaging with local businesses and communities, a new vibrant city quarter has been brought to life filled with new homes, shops, offices, leisure and community facilities. Today, King’s Cross is a living example of how the halo effect of a single development can be a beacon for talent and capital from all over the world. Leading multinationals including Google and Meta have taken up offices in King’s Cross, alongside local businesses and community enterprises. When complete, more than 40,000 people1 will live and work in the area with luxury and affordable homes built side by side.

The UK Government has identified King’s Cross as one of the most successful regeneration projects the city has ever seen and believes it stands as a template for the central role that real estate can play in addressing entrenched economic inequality across the country.2

1 Argent: The traffic-free oasis in the heart of London
2 Financial Times: Can King’s Cross provide a template for UK regeneration, August 2023

Paradise, Birmingham

Paradise, Birmingham

Where commerce meets culture
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Paradise, Birmingham
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Paradise, Birmingham

Built in 1974, Birmingham’s old central library was a post-war brutalist monument, characterised by subways and a
ring-road that separated the east from the west of the city. By the 2000s, the surrounding site had become a magnet
for graffiti and a hub for rough sleepers. Its position in the very centre of the city made it a physical and
metaphorical block to Birmingham’s ambition to become a more sustainable and pedestrianised urban centre.

In 2015, Federated Hermes acquired the site and initiated plans to redevelop its 17 acres into a new economic focal
point for the city. Over the subsequent eight years, the imposing concrete structures and the congested ring-road
was replaced with open, pedestrianised spaces and some of the most sustainable buildings in the UK.

At almost 2 million square feet, Paradise, when complete, will comprise ten new flagship buildings, offering offices,
shops, bars, cafés, restaurants, a luxury hotel and a 49-storey residential tower in the heart of the city.

The premium office spaces have attracted several leading multi-national companies to the city, while spaces are also
reserved for use by the local community. Our priority for the future is to ensure that everyone – investors,
occupiers and local people – has a meaningful stake in Paradise.

Wellington Place, Leeds

Wellington Place, Leeds

More than just a place to work
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Wellington Place, Leeds
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Wellington Place, Leeds

Tile image Wellington Place

Wellington place is one of the largest urban regeneration projects undertaken in Leeds. The site, once a busy railway station operating during the last years of the industrial revolution, has seen many other incarnations since. Today, it stands as a beacon of sustainable real estate.

In the mid-2000s, when Federated Hermes acquired the site, it was teetering on the edge of dereliction. Our vision was to create a hub in which businesses, talent and communities can find common ground. Two decades later, Wellington Place is considered among the most successful city centre regeneration schemes in the UK.

Once completed, the site will have a working population of 18,000 people and will be home to over 30 companies, across nine buildings. 11 & 12 Wellington Place are among the most sustainable buildings in the UK and set a new standard for the future of commercial real estate. However, as a testament to its history, the developers chose to make a feature of the last remnant of the Victorian railway station.

The wagon-lifting hoist sits at the heart of Wellington Place and was once used to move trucks from the lower levels of the station to the raised passenger level. Today, it is the focal point of Tower Square, one of the largest public spaces in Leeds.

Three Chamberlain Square, Birmingham

Three Chamberlain Square, Birmingham

A case study in climate resilience
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Three Chamberlain Square, Paradise Birmingham
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Three Chamberlain Square, Birmingham: a climate resilience case study

Article image 3 chamberlain sq

Climate resilience in real estate is rapidly moving towards the top of the industry’s long-term agenda. Research suggests that a third of real assets globally are exposed to climate hazards such as storms, floods, fires and extreme heat1.

In the mid-2010s, as the industry was starting to rationalise the financial and investment implications of these risks, we began work on the regeneration of Paradise, Birmingham – one of the most iconic public spaces in the UK’s second city.

We saw Three Chamberlain Square – Paradise’s fourth office building – as an opportunity to apply the industry’s best thinking on climate resilience at every stage of the development and management of a socially significant asset.

We commissioned an independent resilience risk analysis of the site which identified key risks related to increased temperatures, decreased rainfall in the summer, increased rainfall in the winter, and rising water levels resulting from increased sea levels.

By working in collaboration with suppliers, contractors and the public sector, we developed a robust response to the report’s findings and factored these into every stage of the development of the building. With regards to its wider carbon footprint, Three Chamberlain Square is on track to achieve one of the lowest embodied carbon levels of a commercial building in the region. It is also one of the first buildings to achieve a BREEAM outstanding rating for sustainability in the built environment2.

1Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark, 2021

2BREEAM Outstanding is the top-level ranking for a sustainable built environment, achieved by less than 1% of new non-domestic buildings, and requires careful planning of each process during the design, procurement, construction, and delivery phase of the building (Source: Paradise Circus General Partner Limited 2023). BREEAM stands for Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodology.

Team

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Closely connected for enhanced outcomes

Heritage and track record​

We have been connecting clients to Private Markets opportunities since our first real estate investment in 1983.​

Client-centric investing​

We’re passionate about connecting clients to innovative investment solutions that seek to deliver financial, as well as social and environmental returns.​

Access to high-quality investment opportunities​

Our 40+ year track record is driven by a mindset of building and nurturing long lasting relationships that deliver outcomes.​

Enhanced outcomes and portfolio diversification

We believe our experience, deep networks and partnership approach enable us to get clients closer to the opportunities in Private Markets – because we are.

Uncover the real potential
in Private Markets

Connect with us to find out more:

Angelo Natale

Executive Director – Head of Business Development, CEMEA