Baron Real Estate Fund

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.

Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated (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, particularly in 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.

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 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.

CBRE Group, Inc. (CBRE) is a top 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 underappreciates 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.

GDS Holdings Limited (GDS) is a market-leading Asia-based operator of data centers with more than 100 data centers in Tier 1 markets in China with 1.5 gigawatts of capacity. 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. Its first-mover advantage in southeast Asia, with recent lease signings from major U.S.-based global technology companies, provide a major growth runway ahead.

Brookfield Corporation (BN) is one of the world's largest alternative asset managers, with $1 trillion in assets under management (AUM) and more than $500 billion of fee-generating AUM. It owns stakes in several publicly listed affiliates as well as other unlisted investments.
Brookfield Corporation's stake in listed companies, including Brookfield Infrastructure, Business Partners, Renewable Partners, and recently spun off Brookfield Asset Management, is worth $45 per share. We see another $25 per share in unlisted investments and $10 per share in carried interest generated for a total of $80 per share, well above the stock's current price. We think the company will profit from growth in alternative asset management, given its superior track record, highly respected CEO, global reach, scale, and diverse product offerings.

Vornado Realty Trust (VNO) is a $30 billion REIT that owns and operates a diversified portfolio of office and retail buildings, mostly in New York.
We believe Vornado is trading at a highly discounted valuation relative to its liquidation value. Vornado also has several sources of embedded value in its portfolio that we believe offer additional upside potential. These sources include improvements in the NYC office portfolio as workers return to offices, the bottoming of the NYC retail portfolio, and the development of the Penn District. Management appears open to pursuing paths to simplify and improve shareholder returns.

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.

Prologis, Inc. (PLD) is the world's largest industrial REIT, with a $100 billion global portfolio. 
In our view, industrial real estate has attractive fundamentals over the next several years, with organic growth among the highest across all real estate asset types. Stabilizing demand, driven by the growth of e-commerce, inventory building, and the need for infill locations to service "last mile" delivery, should be able to absorb a sharp decline in supply deliveries over the next several years. Given Prologis's assets, markets, management, and balance sheet, we believe the company is well positioned to benefit from this favorable fundamental backdrop.

Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. (HLT) is the world's second largest hotel company, with 7,500 properties and 1.2 million rooms across 123 countries. The company has 22 brands, including its flagship Hilton, Conrad, and Waldorf brands, across high-barrier-to-entry urban, convention, and resort destinations.
Hilton executed on its plan to unlock shareholder value by separating into three companies in 2017. The remaining company is largely an asset-light fee business with 90% of management fees derived from top-line revenues. In our view, Hilton has a strong runway to grow its fee base with a pipeline of 460,000 rooms, 180 million loyalty members, and industry-leading brands. Given the substantial cash generation of the business, Hilton consistently returns capital to shareholders via stock buybacks and a modest dividend payout as an additional lever for shareholder returns.