The FPL/NAREIM Pulse Report for the 3rd Quarter 2013 is now available.  Click here for a full report Over the past thirty years, the real estate investment management (REIM) industry has grown dramatically as the sector has matured and real estate has become a more institutionally accepted asset class. Notwithstanding the real estate crisis of the early 1990s, the industry continued to grow and by the mid-2000s business was booming. Transaction volumes were at all-time highs, fees were lucrative, and capital was plentiful even despite the proliferation of managers that occurred over this period. In a “rising tide” environment, real estate investment managers – of all sizes, strategies and geographies – were thriving. Then the 2008 financial crisis hit, and the rules of the game were fundamentally altered. For the first time in years, capital was scarce and firms were forced to aggressively compete for a limited pool of capital that increasingly flowed to only a select handful of high-performing firms. Today, as market forces continue to re-shape the landscape of the industry, capital remains highly concentrated and scale has become more critical to survival than ever before. Increasing market share is no longer a luxury, but rather a requirement for platform viability, and must be a core focus of any manager. This quarter’s Pulse report examines the market forces driving this consolidation, why scale and market share have become so important, and how managers are responding to the new world order. Click here for a full report.