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How long-term collaborations can secure complex real estate deals

The property market is coming back to life. Opportunities abound for investors who can respond nimbly and are able to turn to trusted advisers for support.

The geopolitical shocks, inflation and high interest rates of the past few years have led to a global drop in real estate deals. Energy in the market varies from sector to sector, with industrial and residential property showing more buoyancy compared with office and retail.

Raphael Noé is a founder and CEO at Capreon, a private real estate investment firm. “When we started in 2017, the market was quite stable and solid. We focused on themes where we thought obsolescence wouldn't occur quickly: data centres, onshore manufacturing, life sciences,” Noé says. He adds that Capreon adapted as market volatility grew post-pandemic. “We changed our outlook to say, ‘OK, we're not going to be as heavily thematic as we were, we're going to stop and watch the market and look out for distress and dislocations’.”

You have to have an investment strategy, but you must also be nimble enough to move away from it and respond to market fluctuations.

— Raphael Noé, founder and CEO Capreon

Noé started his career in private equity real estate investment, then helped co-found Capreon in 2017, which currently has £1.2bn assets under management.

“The design was to take some of those private equity attributes of process, reporting and analysis, and merge them with the way private investors – including family offices – communicate, trust one another and perform with absolute transparency and integrity.”

In October 2024, amid signs that sections of the real estate market were starting to stabilise, Capreon moved into new offices in Kingly Court in central London. Noé has a long-standing partnership with law firm Fladgate and, in particular, partner Simon Kanter, a transactional lawyer specialising in commercial property. He has worked with Noé’s father since the early 1990s. “We like to think that we really understand the business and understand where they [Capreon] want to get to, whether it's transactional or asset management,” says Kanter. “We’ve grown with them as they have become more sophisticated.”

We really understand the business and where Capreon want to get to.

Over recent years, private capital has risen to become a meaningful source of investment in the real estate sector, which, according to the accountancy firm PwC, includes family offices, sovereign wealth funds and non-bank institutions.

Noé has seen this first-hand with Capreon. “There used to be a belief that either private capital was a bunch of geniuses sitting in a room doing things nobody else could do, or it was the patsy for buying something that nobody else would touch,” he says. “I haven't met much private capital that's the patsy anymore. They all have boards, structures, processes and advisors, which means that your reporting to them has to be superb and your analysis to bring them in has to be good.”

For Fladgate this means providing Capreon with a breadth of legal expertise that matches the sophistication of private capital. “You definitely need expertise, not only in real estate but also in the corporate aspects, finance, taxes, real estate litigation, construction and planning,” says Kanter. “Everything is done in a much more specialist manner now. But you still need lawyers who can project manage their team and the transaction, partners who can guide, unblock and communicate.”

To know that the deals that you do, the money that is made, is used in a way that gives back to the community – it makes the hard work worthwhile.

Noé and Kanter’s families have been close for decades, their friendship reflecting the values Noé looks for in Capreon partners. “You need to work with people that reflect what you want the market to think about you. So to know that Fladgate specifically reflects our core values of integrity, honesty, diligence and hard work is key,” he explains.

The Noé family run a charitable trust, of which Kanter is a trustee. “To know that the deals that you do, the money that is made, is used in a way that gives back to the community – it’s exceptional in my experience,” Kanter says. “It makes the hard work and effort worthwhile, to know that in some way you have contributed.”

Noé sees the disruption in the real estate market as an opportunity to grow Capreon. “We think there's a market dislocation going on now that will continue, subject to all sorts of things going on in the world, which will allow us to play the market and do some really interesting deals. We want to target large transactions in the UK and Europe with the right partners, both institutional and private. If we can buy well, manage well and sell well – and as long as we look out for our partners – if we can do that for five, 10, 15 and 20 years, we'll be doing fantastically.”

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