Inside the Nuveen Global Cities Private Real Estate Fund

Please note that this interview was recorded Wednesday, 10 September 2025

Private real estate has long been a domain reserved for institutions and the ultra-wealthy. The Nuveen Global Cities Private Real Estate Fund is seeking to change that. 

For investors, the attraction lies in accessing a globally diversified portfolio of direct property assets, spanning industrial, multifamily housing, medical offices, retail, and more, without the volatility that often plagues publicly listed REITs.

As Shawn Lese, Chief Investment Officer and Head of Funds Management, America for Nuveen Real Estate, explained:

“The Fund is really designed to deliver a diversified exposure to investors in real estate. 

What we're really looking to do is pick those real estate sectors and the geographic exposure that's really best positioned to take advantage of a lot of structural and demographic mega trends that we're seeing out there in the market.”

With more than 90 years of experience, US$142 billion in assets under management, and teams stationed in over 30 global cities (2), Nuveen leverages its scale to behave like a truly local investor. The result: access to opportunities that often never reach the open market, executed by sector specialists who focus solely on their domain.

In this Fund in Focus, Lese walks through the key differentiators of Nuveen’s approach, from local expertise and off-market deal flow to sector specialisation and dynamic portfolio allocation. 

He outlines examples of investments across the US, APAC, and Europe, as well as the fund’s ability to pivot between equity and debt depending on where the best risk-adjusted returns are found. 

Finally, he explains the role private real estate can play in a portfolio, from providing steady income and capital appreciation to diversifying risk and hedging against inflation. For the full experience, watch the video above, or read a short summary below. 

INTERVIEW SUMMARY

Local scale, global reach

Nuveen Real Estate has been investing for more than 90 years and today manages US$142 billion in assets with over 770 people across 30 offices worldwide. Lese highlighted how that footprint translates into a competitive edge: 

“Our size and our scale and our presence around the world makes us really a local investor. And so a lot of times what you'll have is you'll have somebody from New York flying down to Dallas… well, we've got 40 people on the ground in Dallas.” 

This local presence, he explained, drives outperformance compared to firms parachuting in for deals.

Sector specialisation

Another key differentiator is Nuveen’s structure of specialist teams. 

“Real estate as an asset class really shouldn't be thought of just as real estate. You really need to break it down to the individual sectors,” Lese said. 

Nuveen has six teams dedicated to housing, offices, industrial, retail, alternatives (such as self-storage, medical offices, and senior living), plus a team focused purely on debt. “The acquisitions, the financing, the asset management, the dispositions of the assets are all done by people who only focus on that one sector,” he says. 

Off-market opportunities

That combination of local knowledge and sector depth often leads to exclusive deal flow.

“About two-thirds of the deals that we do in the fund, they're either off-market or semi-off-market,” Lese said. 

He illustrated with an example from Los Angeles, where a local contact offered an industrial property before it hit the broader market, allowing Nuveen to secure a better price and stronger returns.

Dynamic allocation across equity and debt

Flexibility is another hallmark of the fund. While its core remains direct equity investments in private real estate, Nuveen can adjust both geographically and by asset class to capture the best risk-adjusted returns. In periods when lending offers better value, the strategy can tilt toward debt. As Lese explained;

“That kind of flexibility is something that's pretty important for us. Generally what you're going to be getting is exposure to a diversified pool of direct real estate assets across sectors and geographies.”

Managing risk in real estate

Risk is ever-present in property markets, but Lese emphasised the fund’s conservative approach. 

“Core real estate should be leveraged… 30 to 35% loan to value. But once interest rates started rising, we anticipated falling values, we basically took that leverage down to 14%.” 

Beyond leverage, the team rigorously assesses each property’s physical integrity, environmental risk, and sustainability requirements to avoid “brown discounts.” Supply-demand dynamics are also closely monitored, with Lese pointing to oversupply in multifamily housing in 2022–23 as a sector they deliberately avoided.

Role in a portfolio

Private real estate, Lese argued, offers a powerful blend of income, capital appreciation, diversification, and inflation protection. 

“If the total target returns [are] 8-10% over a cycle, you might hope to get about half of that in the form of income,” he said. 

He also stressed its low correlation with listed REITs, which behave more like small-cap stocks than direct real estate. 

“By introducing private direct real estate, you are able to get diversified… you're getting a good return, low volatility, so pretty solid risk-adjusted return.”

Learn more

To learn more about Nuveen’s private real estate strategy, please visit their website.