In 2022 Oxford executed $18B in transactions, secured $11B of new financing, leased 18 million square feet and committed to or are actively developing over 100 projects across the globe. With this breadth of both investment and operational activity underway we’re finding more and more opportunities to unlock value. To better understand the relationship between our investment and operational capabilities here at Oxford, we asked our leaders one question, ‘how does being an operator make us a better investor?’

This is what they had to say…

Allison Wolfe, Chief Financial Officer & Global Head of Portfolio Management

“It’s about confidence. What allows us to have confidence when we invest is the insights we glean from Oxford’s series of businesses and platforms. For instance, when we’re looking at a development investment opportunity, we can easily connect with colleagues who have decades of development experience. Think construction, project management, planning, all of those components that go into delivering an amazing project.

When we look at more complicated global projects. We are able to leverage not only our existing teams, but the capabilities of our portfolio businesses and platforms like IDI logistics, M7, or Investa. This is what gives us the confidence to make those big calls.”

Randy Hoffman, Senior Vice President, Canada

“Investing is all about inputs, and our investments are only as good as our inputs. Our people on the ground are those inputs. So ‘how do I know what it will cost to operate a building?’ Well, I’m going to call my colleague who operates the building next door. ‘How do I know what rent we can achieve in that building?’ I’m going to call one of my colleagues here at Oxford who is leasing the building down the street.

We are able take that real-time, real-life data, collect it, and put it into our pro forma. That just makes us better investors. We see this relationship between our operators and investors in every market we invest in, particularly in Canada with the depth of the platform we have.

The great thing about our global platform is even if we don’t have the operational expertise in house, we have either acquired or partnered with best-in-classes businesses who have that expertise. So, while it may not be an Oxford logo on the door, it’s an Oxford partner where you can pick up the phone and get the same level of detail.”

Ankit Bhatt, Vice President, Investments

“You must have boots on the ground, you must know the trends that are taking place on the rental side of the business. These are the things that will help you have the insights to manage risk properly. We are in the business of buying and managing risk and if you want to generate high differentiated returns in your investment strategy, having or acquiring an operator is critical.”

Jeff Miller, Head of Industrial

“Oxford’s historic industrial business was located in four markets in Canada and the unique thing is it was fully integrated. Integrated in development, service delivery, asset management, and we really controlled the entire platform from investment down to service, including relationships with our customers.

To take a fully integrated approach on a global scale is very difficult. You just can’t do this by building a building at a time or acquiring a building at a time. What we have done is taken our operating experience and applied that to investments around the world, which is quite unique as the real estate arm of a pension fund.

Our superpower is we come in with operating experience, development experience, and understand how these buildings function and who the customers are. The sum of this is outsized returns, a global footprint, and in each day, it makes us a better investor and operator.”

Christie Chen, Director, Investment US

“Having an operating platform benefits us in two major ways. One – when we are evaluating deals, we can walk over to our asset management, leasing and operating teams to leverage latest operational insight. Two – It enables us to better compete in the market from a capital partnership standpoint. We win deals because of the strength of our operating platform and execution capabilities. It gives us a competitive advantage in attracting co-investors because of our track record.”