Baron Real Estate Fund

Equinix, Inc. (EQIX) is a network neutral operator of 260 data centers across 70 metro areas and 33 countries in North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. It provides highly reliable facilities and offers low latency interconnection to and among business partners, networks, and cloud service providers.
Equinix benefits from several long-term secular trends, including increasing internet traffic, IT outsourcing, cloud computing, AI, and mobility. As data and customer needs become more global, Equinix should also be able to leverage its leading global data center platform. We believe Equinix can continue to grow through new data center development, rent increases, and the addition of value-added services supplemented by accretive acquisitions that increase market penetration and reach.

Toll Brothers, Inc. (TOL) is a leading high-end, luxury homebuilder that caters to move-up, empty-nester, active-adult, age-qualified, and second-home buyers in 19 states in the U.S.
New single-family home construction activity in the U.S. remains below the levels needed to meet current and pent-up demand following a decade of underbuilding. We expect single-family home construction activity to continue over the medium term. In our view, Toll Brothers is a differentiated homebuilder with a niche focus on high-end homes and an excellent management team. We think Toll Brothers is well positioned to benefit from housing growth through its sizable land bank, healthy balance sheet, and market share gains against smaller players.

Lennar Corporation (LEN) is one of the nation's largest homebuilders.
New single-family home construction activity in the U.S. remains below the levels needed to meet current and pent-up demand following a decade of under-building. We expect single-family home construction activity to continue over the next several years. As one of the largest U.S. homebuilders, Lennar is well positioned to benefit from end-market growth and market share gains. The company is also driving improved returns on capital via margin expansion and improved capital efficiency.

Blackstone Inc. (BX) is the world’s largest alternative asset manager. It has $1 trillion in assets under management, with specialization across Private Equity, Real Estate, Hedge Fund Solutions, and Credit & Insurance.
Blackstone is a best-of-breed global alternative asset manager, with a strong brand, global scale, long-term investment track record, full suite of products, and a proven executive team. The company is still in the early innings of democratizing access to alternative investments for a broader array of investors. Blackstone is asset-light, maintains minimal corporate level debt, and returns most of its cash flow through dividends and share repurchases.

D.R. Horton, Inc. (DHI) is the largest homebuilder in the U.S.
New single-family home construction activity in the U.S. remains below the levels needed to meet current and pent-up demand following a decade of underbuilding. We expect single-family home construction activity to continue over the medium term. D.R. Horton is well positioned to benefit from end-market growth and market share gains. The company is also driving higher returns on capital via margin expansion and improved capital efficiency.

CBRE Group, Inc. (CBRE) is a leading commercial real estate services company with the leading market share in all of its major businesses.
We believe CBRE will gain meaningfully from the long-term recovery in the commercial real estate industry. Its leasing and investment sales units have high incremental margins, and we believe its profitability will improve with healthier end markets. We also believe the market under-appreciates the value associated with CBRE’s property management unit given its growing, highly recurring revenue stream and open-ended growth prospects. CBRE is also one of the world’s leading managers of real estate assets.

Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc. (JLL) is one of the world's largest providers of commercial real estate transaction, consulting, and investment management services through a network of more than 100 offices worldwide.
Jones Lang has a leading brand, sophisticated technology, global platform, deep bench of talent, and a solid balance sheet. Its scale and platform provide a strong moat. We think the company will benefit from stabilization in interest rates and the economy, which should lead to improvement across business lines, in particular leasing and capital markets. We think the company can grow EPS at a double-digit CAGR over the next several years, driven by a cyclical recovery, secular growth tailwinds, market share gains, operating leverage, acquisitions, and share buybacks.

GDS Holdings Limited (GDS) is a market-leading Asia-based operator of data centers with over 100 data centers in Tier 1 markets in China with 1.5 gigawatts of capcaity. Additionally, GDS has 1 gigawatt of power capacity in Asia outside of China.
We believe that, as the preferred provider to Alibaba and Tencent, as well as other large global technology companies, GDS is poised to benefit from the explosive growth in cloud computing in China and abroad. Cloud adoption is still in the early stages in China, and GDS is capturing more than its fair share of incremental deployments due to its proven track record and carrier-neutral value proposition. Additionally, its first mover advantage in southeast Asia with recent lease signings from major US based global technology companies provide a major growth runway ahead.

Welltower Inc. (WELL) is a $45 billion diversified health care owner and manager of senior housing, including assisted and independent living. Core to its strategy is to partner with top-tier operators and health systems while providing operators access to its proprietary data analytics platform.
We are optimistic about the prospects for Welltower given the substantial opportunity for cyclical recovery and continued secular growth in its senior housing business through occupancy and rent growth. The company also benefits from its proven ability to recycle capital at attractive rates of returns, premier health care platform, partnerships with top-tier operators, and well-respected management team focused solely on creating value on a per-share basis.

Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (DLR) is a leading global provider of large-scale data center services to enterprises, cloud providers, and network operators. The company has 310 data centers in over 50 metro areas around the globe, with 51% of revenue in North America and the remainder in other regions worldwide.
Digital Realty enjoys strong growth prospects driven by cloud adoption, IT/data center outsourcing, and emerging AI applications. With a recurring revenue model, a sticky customer base with long-term leases, scale advantages, and a strong management team, we think Digital Realty is well positioned to take share. It offers a comprehensive suite of services through its acquisitions of Telx Group (network dense interconnection provider), Equicity (eight European assets), DuPont Fabros (U.S.-based wholesale operator), Ascenty (Brazil-based operator), and InterXion (Europe).

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