EQT to Acquire $16.5B Real Estate Manager Stockbridge for $375M Plus Earnouts

Swedish private markets firm EQT AB has agreed to acquire Stockbridge, a San Francisco-based real estate investment manager with about $16.5 billion in fee-generating assets under management, for $375 million in cash at closing and as much as $175 million more in earnouts, EQT said.

Stockbridge has also moved into the private wealth market. It launched a private wealth business in January 2025, focusing on raising capital from individual investors and their wealth advisers through channels including independent broker-dealers, registered investment advisers, wirehouses, private banks, and family offices.

In early 2025, Stockbridge made its investment products available to wealth management firms through the iCapital Marketplace and SUBSCRIBE, an operating system for alternative investments. Its private wealth team includes Vere Reynolds-Hale, managing director of private wealth business development and head of national accounts, and Chris Lundberg, managing director of private wealth strategy and sales operations, both of whom joined from Apollo Global Management in 2024. In August 2025, Stockbridge added Laura Spicciatie, formerly of UBS Asset Management, as vice president, senior national account manager.

Stockbridge, which reports about $27 billion in gross asset value, will fold into EQT Real Estate. Its diversified and alternative strategies will run as a separate business line, and its industrial capabilities will merge with EQT Real Estate’s existing industrial platform. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2027, subject to customary closing conditions that include investor consents.

Founded in 2003, Stockbridge has about 185 professionals across six U.S. offices and about 180 institutional clients, according to EQT. Its strategies include traditional property sectors, industrial outdoor storage, alternative living (including manufactured housing), and open-ended core products.

EQT said Stockbridge’s open-ended core fund ranked in the top 5% of its peer group over the one-, three-, and five-year periods, based on the NCREIF ODCE Index as of the first quarter of 2026. EQT plans to make the fund a flagship diversified core strategy within EQT Real Estate. It intends to raise more capital for the fund from existing and new clients through its international distribution network, especially in Europe and Asia.

EQT said it also plans to use Stockbridge’s manufactured housing experience as the base for a broader alternative living business, which over time could add subsectors such as senior and student housing.

The acquisition is EQT Real Estate’s second U.S. manager deal in about five years. EQT acquired logistics-focused Exeter Property Group in April 2021 in a deal valued at about $1.87 billion. EQT said its real estate business has more than doubled in size since 2021.

“This transaction will enable us to deliver the attractive risk-adjusted returns our clients have come to expect from EQT Real Estate across a broader range of sectors,” said Henry Steinberg, global head of EQT Real Estate. “It will expand our industrial platform and broaden client access to complementary strategies, accelerating EQT Real Estate’s evolution into a more thematically diversified real estate manager, while staying true to our sector-specialist, local-with-locals approach.”

Deal Terms

EQT will acquire all of Stockbridge’s management company and the general partner entities that control interests in Stockbridge’s funds. It will also be entitled to invest in 35% of the carried interest in all future Stockbridge funds. EQT will pay the $375 million base consideration in cash from its balance sheet, on a cash- and debt-free basis.

Stockbridge’s senior management has committed to reinvest half of its cash proceeds in EQT AB shares bought on the open market after closing. Those shares will be subject to lock-ups, with portions expiring in each of 2029, 2030, and 2031.

The earnouts of up to $175 million may be paid from 2027 through 2030. They depend on raising fee-paying commitments in new products and come with similar reinvestment and lock-up requirements.

EQT expects Stockbridge to contribute about $35 million to $45 million of fee-related EBITDA in 2027, at a margin of about 30% to 35%, with annual growth of 15% to 20% in the following years. EQT said Stockbridge’s focus on core and asset-value-based strategies means lower headline fee rates. As a result, the business will initially carry a lower blended fee rate and margin than EQT Real Estate does today.

Stockbridge’s chief executive officer, Terry Fancher, will become vice chair of EQT Real Estate, reporting to Steinberg. Stockbridge’s chief financial officer, Kristin Renaudin, will become global CFO of EQT Real Estate. Tuba Malinowski, executive managing director at Stockbridge, will become head of U.S. diversified real estate. EQT said existing leadership, investment teams, and decision-making processes will largely stay in place.

Stockbridge will switch to the EQT Real Estate brand at closing. Existing funds will keep their current names.

“Joining EQT Real Estate enables us to continue delivering differentiated strategies to the market through the same teams and investment philosophy that have built our track record, while benefiting from EQT’s global reach and operating platform,” Fancher said.

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