Blue Owl Capital collected more industry awards in 2025 than any other real assets manager, receiving three honors from the Private Equity Real Estate (PERE) Awards and four from the Infrastructure Investor Awards.
The firm won three PERE honors: Global Net Lease Investor of the Year, Global Data Center Investor of the Year, and Global Retail Real Estate Investor of the Year. It won four Infrastructure Investor honors: Global Digital Infrastructure Investor of the Year, Global Innovator of the Year, North America Digital Infrastructure Investor of the Year, and North America Deal of the Year for the Hyperion campus financing.
The awards, announced on March 4, reflect a year in which Blue Owl’s Real Assets platform executed several significant transactions, including the acquisition of IPI Partners, a majority investment in Dallas-based Gigabit Fiber. Blue Owl Real Assets also executed a first-of-its-kind transaction, serving as a trusted partner to Meta on its $27 billion Hyperion data center campus in Louisiana.
“We are truly honored to be recognized by both PERE and Infrastructure Investor spanning seven total awards, all of which reinforce the strength of our integrated real assets platform, the dedication of our team and the continued trust of our partners,” said Marc Zahr, Co-President and Global Head of Real Assets at Blue Owl, in a statement. “We remain focused on our mission to deliver the highest current cash flow and total return while taking the least amount of risk.”
2025 Transactions That Anchored the Recognition
The awards came at the end of a year defined by several prominent transactions that expanded Blue Owl’s position in digital infrastructure.
The Hyperion data center campus in Louisiana, a $27 billion project Blue Owl helped finance and owns, was one of the largest single data center transactions disclosed in recent years. Blue Owl’s approach to data center investing focuses on providing capital for the physical structure rather than the technology inside it, working with hyperscale tenants that pre-lease the assets on a long-term basis. That structure keeps Blue Owl’s exposure tied to real estate fundamentals — long-term leases, creditworthy tenants — rather than to the capital expenditure cycles of the companies occupying these mission critical buildings.
The acquisition of IPI Partners, completed in January 2025, added dedicated digital infrastructure capabilities to Blue Owl’s Real Assets platform. IPI was founded in 2016 as a joint venture between Iconiq and Iron Point, and it had built a track record in data center equity investments before the acquisition. Blue Owl also completed a majority investment in Gigabit Fiber, a Dallas-based provider, during the year.
Real Assets Platform Growth
The award activity coincided with a period of significant expansion for the Real Assets platform. Total Real Assets assets under management reached $80.6 billion as of December 31, 2025, up 63% from $49.4 billion a year earlier, the fastest-growing segment at Blue Owl by percentage during the year, according to Blue Owl’s fourth quarter 2025 investor presentation. The platform owns more than 6,025 equity assets and maintains relationships with more than 860 tenants and partners.
Blue Owl’s Real Assets platform raised $17 billion in equity during 2025, up from $4.9 billion in 2024. A significant portion of that capital came through wealth-dedicated products. Blue Owl Real Estate ranked as the top net fundraiser among non-traded real estate investment trusts in 2025, with inflows accelerating 55% year over year. During the fourth quarter, the firm launched a wealth-dedicated digital infrastructure REIT, raising $1.7 billion in its first close.
While private real estate fundraising recovered broadly in 2025, reaching $222 billion industry-wide and increasing 29% from 2024 levels, Blue Owl’s inflows outpaced that broader recovery by a wide margin.
The firm’s net lease strategy also continued to attract investor attention outside the data center sector. Zahr, writing for PERE in a published commentary, described investors gravitating toward scale, downside protection, and long-term leases as volatility in data center markets increased during 2025.
Blue Owl’s net lease investment trust, ORENT, continued to accelerate inflows through the fourth quarter, while the firm also raised capital through its seventh vintage drawdown product.
The firm manages its real estate exposure primarily through triple net lease structures, in which tenants cover property taxes, insurance, and maintenance costs in addition to base rent. Blue Owl has cited that structure as a source of downside protection for investors, particularly as questions about data center valuations intensified during 2025.
How the Awards Are Determined
PERE and Infrastructure Investor are publications of PEI Group, which covers private markets investing globally. Both programs carry meaningful standing among institutional real assets allocators.
The PERE Awards are an editorially driven process, with editors reviewing submissions and weighing criteria including capital raised and deployed in the last twelve months, market impact, and performance metrics where applicable. The annual awards honor investors, managers, advisors, and industry professionals whose achievements have shaped the private real estate market during the prior year.
The Infrastructure Investor Awards follow a similar editorial approach, though their criteria are structured differently across categories. For Investor of the Year designations, the editorial board prioritizes fund closes, completed and announced deals, and other significant milestones from the judging period. Deal of the Year categories focus on transactions of particular size and industry impact, while the Innovator of the Year designation targets milestones that have advanced the asset class in a meaningful way.
Related: Blue Owl Capital Closes Debut Strategic Equity Secondaries Fund With Over $3 Billion in Commitments
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