Buoyed by strong fundraising, Hines plans to complete more than a third of its investments in Europe in 2026. And France will be at the heart of this ambition.
"Globally, there has been so much uncertainty over the last two years, going from a globalized world to a deglobalized world. We are living in a very different context and that's a framework real estate investors need to be focused on," Steve Luthman, global head of real estate at Hines, emphasizes right off the bat as he welcomes us to the American giant’s Paris offices. “Going forward, we really believe that it means much more focus on local decisions, asset selection and local operations.”
And in a world where we can no longer rely solely on “beta investing” — that is, targeting macro trends by betting on falling interest rates to drive value creation — “we no longer generate real estate returns by making macro bets, but by understanding cities, selecting the right assets, and then managing them flawlessly,” he adds.
These are all reasons why Hines has established local teams in the 383 cities and 30 countries where the group has investments. "We think that the world has moved from the age of the allocator to the age of the operator," says Steve Luthman, who sees in this evolution an opportunity for his group given its historical operator DNA. "All of those teams form a neural network of knowledge that help us really understand, in this de-globalized world, where the best opportunities are for us to be investing, and then how can we add value to those investments because that's the difference in returns in this market environment."
It is also with this in mind that Hines decided over the past decade to bring its property management operations in Europe and Asia in-house — in France, the property management division has been in place since 2023 — just as it had already done in the United States, explains Luthman: "We see tremendous value in end-to-end execution: because we understand what's important to our tenant occupiers, that informs our asset management, which informs our investment strategy."
Europe and France at the heart of the strategy
As it sets out its roadmap, the U.S. management firm plans to give a prominent place to the major European real estate markets. “Last year, Europe was one-third of our overall investment base and, as we enter 2026, it is about 50 % of our pipeline,” notes Luthman. “We deeply believe that European investment is the most resilient place around the world because of the lack of new supply,” he adds.
To invest in European real estate markets, Hines employs three strategies: core, through the Hines European Core Fund, an open-ended vehicle with €3.6 billion in assets under management that “had its best year for fundraising in 2025, with 2026 shaping up to be even better,” according to Hines; core-plus, with its Hines European Property Partners fund, which had raised €1.5 billion as of December 31, 2025, from institutional investors; and value-added, through its Hines European Real Estate Partners (Herep) fund series. Closed at €1.6 billion in November 2023, the third fund will soon be fully deployed, while its successor, Herep IV, “currently has excellent fundraising momentum” and “is expected to have its first closing later this year,” the group adds.
“Thanks to these three strategies, our fund lineup is most robust in Europe,” says Luthman. “Investors are turning to Europe for its resilience and stability, and having such a deep pool of capital across the entire risk spectrum is a significant advantage," he adds. As a result, Hines plans to commit at least one-third of its investments to the Old Continent in 2026. “The timing of our fundraising in Europe has been exceptional; we therefore have capital and the capacity to deploy it in line with our convictions,” agrees Xavier Musseau, president of Hines France.
France, where Hines has €5 billion in assets under management, could also attract a significant portion of this capital, according to its global head of real estate. "In the last six months, our investment volume has been about two and a half times what it was the prior two years,” he notes, and adds: “Paris will always be a global gateway market and we think there is right now a very interesting pricing moment in most asset classes in France.”
Priority on residential, office and industrial
From a sector perspective, "our primary focus is on residential real estate worldwide, but particularly in Europe,’” explains Luthman, pointing to Hines’ strong interest in purpose-built student accommodation and build-to-rent properties. “The regulatory environment has been changing in France to allow for institutional investing, so it's a great time to be both buying and developing residential in France.” Hines is also preparing to launch its Aparto student housing platform in France, which is already present in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain. For its first project, the investor is currently the Liberté 1 building in Charenton-le-Pont into a 650-bed residence. In the same vein, last fall the group also acquired a 642-bed residence developed in Courbevoie by Interconstruction, scheduled to open in the first half of 2028, as well as an office building located at 67 Avenue Vladimir-Ilyich Lenin in Arcueil, which is set to house a residence with approximately 650 beds.
A key player in one of the largest Parisian commercial real estate deals of early this year — the €242.5 million acquisition from SFL of 83 Marceau, the headquarters of Goldman Sachs in the 8th arrondissement—Hines also maintains a strong appetite for office properties. “We had taken a pause on the office sector since probably 2018, and weren't investing in a tremendous amount, but the recent 83 Marceau acquisition demonstrated the opportunity to acquire great office assets in prime locations: there is zero new supply pressure, a tremendous demand, and rents have only been increasing in those prime locations, says Luthman, who adds that “new supply is virtually nonexistent, demand is extremely strong, and rents have continued to rise in these locations."
Noting that “this is not limited to France” and that “the supply of prime AAA-grade office space is structurally limited,” he adds that “now is a particularly opportune time to invest in Europe —in London, Berlin, and of course Paris—by taking advantage of a period of relative market disruption." Although a value-added project, the recent acquisition from Ofi Invest Real Estate of 32 Iéna — a restructuring project designed by Franklin Azzi Architecture — follows the same logic. Given the uncertainty that we're experiencing geopolitically, we are really focused on the strength and resilience of the portfolio in 2026. Paris is among the top three to five cities globally where you know that there will be a deep pool of capital that will always want to be invested there; these acquisitions are therefore part of the same investment strategy, albeit at different points in the buildings’ life cycle."
Industrial real estate will also be a key focus for the American investor in the coming years, particularly data centers. And to ensure its growth in this sector, it intends to rely on the expertise of its French teams. “France is now one of the top three countries for data center development for Hines worldwide — a position that is still relatively unknown — and is now sharing this expertise across the entire Hines platform,” says Luthman, noting that his group currently has a pipeline of approximately 1 GWh, spread across six or seven distinct sites. “Our expertise is firmly focused on development,” adds Musseau. “To create maximum value for our investors, we act as project managers and developers by owning the land, developing the asset, and securing the energy supply, before forming partnerships with data center operators who, for their part, master the technological component.”
In the logistics sector, “the long term fundamentals are so good — even more so given the lower e-commerce penetration rate in Continental Europe — and there is such a limit in new supply that we will remain deeply comitted to the asset class,” adds Steve Luthman. In France, Hines intends to target the entire logistics real estate market, from XXL assets to small courier facilities. The group has also formed a partnership with Atmos Capital, which is acting as an Operating Partner with the mission of aggregating smaller-scale assets into a portfolio. And while some asset turnover is to be expected — its French portfolio Asphalt is reportedly currently on the market, according to our information — "in terms of transaction volumes, we will be a net buyer in industrial in 2026," predicts its global head of real estate.