These firms are being recognized for thriving and being leaders in the institutional investing market.

Principal Asset Management Winner

Principal Asset Management’s real estate team follows “PRPI,” its pillars of responsible property investing.

“This ESG platform guides our investment management practices and is also used by our property management partners in tandem to help drive positive financial results and ESG outcomes for our clients and investors,” says Angela Ault, associate director of global distribution operations.

PRPI focuses on five primary areas of environmental, social and governance principles to guide decisionmaking:

• environmental performance;
• occupant experience;
• community impact;
• climate resilience; and
• managerial excellence.

The listed infrastructure strategy was founded in 2019 as a new capability within the Principal Real Estate public equity quadrant.

“We attribute our listed infrastructure strategy’s success thus far first and foremost to the decision to leverage the core investment philosophies of Principal’s public equity real estate capability, which was similarly built in-house in the late 1990s,” Ault says. “We rely on a dedicated team of sector specialists and our quality-bias, bottom-up focus and active-weight guidelines feature heavily in both strategies. The Listed Infrastructure strategy has also been able to leverage the long-standing commitment at Principal Asset Management to integrate sustainability factors into its investment practices while pursuing positive financial results for clients.”

Ault adds that the company has intentionally built a diverse and inclusive investment team for the listed infrastructure strategy, “which it believes leads to better investment decisions and outcomes for clients.”

Principal leverages a combination of internally developed software and externally sourced artificial intelligence technology to enhance various business functions. The company has established an artificial intelligence and machine learning policy that applies to all employees and contracted or third parties within companies wholly and majority-owned by Principal, Ault says.

“Our policy seeks to ensure that all artificial intelligence and machine learning initiatives are developed, deployed and managed in compliance with applicable laws/regulations and associated controls,” she says. “We will seek to develop further tools, in a thoughtful way, where we see that the technology may enhance our processes.”

Finalists

• Brookfield Asset Management
• DigitalBridge
• Global Infrastructure Partners (BlackRock)
• Harrison Street
• KKR
• Macquarie Asset Management
• Stonepeak