There’s an extraordinary amount of AUM Gobbling ™ happening in CRE right now. With REITs continuing to get pummeled in the public markets and dry powder jonesing to get wet, we’re getting multiple announcements of take-privates seemingly every other week. But who exactly is doing the gobbling? Here’s The Promote’s snapshot of the firms and execs driving much of the recent M&A action. 👇

Bravo Capital, a leading national healthcare and multifamily lender, has just released The Silver Wave, a must-read guide to SNFs and the growing investment gap in healthcare infrastructure. Over 10,000 Americans turn 65 every single day. By 2040, more than 80M seniors will need care — yet the national inventory of skilled nursing facility (SNF) beds has barely grown in over a decade. Bravo’s new snapshot is the definitive guide to understanding this demographic shift, what it means for SNF demand, and why this may be one of the most compelling long-term opportunities in real estate today.

Len O’ Donnell, Affinius Capital: What Charlie Kushner couldn’t do, his estranged nephew has done. We learn this am that Affinius (also on our Quiet Kings of Capital list) has struck a $3.4B take-private deal for Veris Residential, at a 27.5% premium to 30-day VWAP. There is an amazing add’l bit of family drama here that it seems most outlets have missed: Affinius is teaming up on the deal w/ Vista Hill Partners, a CRE investor co-led by Jonathan Kushner. Now Jonathan, of course, is the son of Murray Kushner, who was in a famous blood feud w/ Charlie Kushner and is the patriarch of arch-rival firm Kushner Real Estate Group. Charlie himself made multiple unsuccesful plays for Veris in ‘22/23 through his Kushner Cos. So this one’s worth it for the Shabbos table bragging rights alone.

Prem Watsa, Fairfax Financial: The Canadian insurance magnate is acquiring major CRE lender Kennedy Wilson in a $1.65B take-private, w/ Fairfax backing a management-led buyout by KW CEO William McMorrow. The deal’s coming in at a 46% premium to the REIT’s share price just before news of the offer broke. Remember that KW already gobbled up Toll Bros. multifamily development arm for ≈ $350M last fall. The Fairfax deal is set to close in Q2, though it’s being challenged by at least one investor.

Marcos Alvarado, Sixth Street: The $125B AUM firm, where Starwood and Safehold alum Alvarado leads the US CRE division, made waves on the CRE scene w/ its investment into AH sharpshooter L+M (Ron Moelis) last summer. It also made an unsolicited play for Plymouth Industrial last summer, but was bested by Makarora.

Promote Insiders: Read on for the full list at the end of this newsletter 👇

Everyone is trying to get into the data-center game, w/ decidedly mixed results. But now, there is a game that helps you understand what it takes to build & manage a data center. Sharing it here because the analysts from all the brokerages, lenders and investors in the space should def check it out. Pairs well w/ the following 🍷 🧀

1. This chat w/ a CoreWeave exec about the process
2. This one w/ a utilities analyst poking a hole in the insatiable demand story
3. This new dive into the major hiccups at the $500B Stargate project (BTW: Newmark got some Stargate heavy-hitters to show up at its NYC energy conference week 👀)

On Wednesday, subscribers to The Promote Insider heard directly from a sr. exec at a major apt. landlord about the actual goings-on in institutional multifamily, from rent-growth trends to concessions to the capital markets. Here’s a teaser:

You really have to hand it to the brokers and third-party real estate economists. They spent all of ‘25 spinning a positive tune, despite reality spitting in their faces at every turn. To be clear: 2025 was the worst year for rent growth since ‘09, aka the heart of the GFC. Over the prior 3 years, rent growth has worsened every single year, with the 0.3% measure recorded in ‘25 coming in nearly 100bps below ‘24.

These numbers are far from the 4% rent declines experienced in ‘09. But the story is muddied by the fact that this time around, the Midwest, Bay Area, and NYC areas have vastly outperformed due to a supply shortage in those markets. (You see this via the investment-sales activity in those markets too, w/ large market-rate rentals commanding top dollar) However, in areas with a supply glut such as the Sunbelt, the bloodbath in some markets is on par – if not worse – than the GFC. (The business plans of operators who moved into those markets betting on years of ZIRP and rising rents have violently come undone – see here and here. Moreover, the numbers cited above are asking rents, which merely hint at the pain.

We also looked at the deets of Yoni Goodman’s big-boy job at Arbor, and another impending Guttman deal on the Greenpoint waterfront 👀 . If this sounds like your jam, you can sign up for premium on a 2-week free trial and read it here.

LivCor, a MF owner and PM giant that is a subsidiary of Blackstone, is in the midst of a major push to bring its property management in-house, The Promote understands. This is a major blow for its PM vendors, such as Bell Partners, which was recently informed of LivCor’s decision. We’re still fuzzy about whether this insourcing is exclusive to LivCor, or if this is something BX is looking to do across its multifamily empire (BREIT, Preferred, etc.) – more on that soon. Institutional PM sources speculate that BX may be looking to create the one PM firm to rule them all, under the AIR umbrella - you’ll recall that BX did a $10B take-private of that firm in ‘24. We don’t cover PM much but this is a big move w/ uuge implications for 3rd party management, so hit us up if you have more deets.