Crestpoint Real Estate Investments made headlines last week with the announcement of its partnership with Minto Group to take Minto Apartment REIT private, but the commercial real estate and mortgage investment manager has been active on several fronts over the past couple of years.

The 50-50 partnership values Minto Apartment REIT at approximately $2.3 billion in the all-cash transaction. Crestpoint president and chief executive officer Kevin Leon told RENX that Minto Group had selectively spoken with a few potential partners and, after a few months of getting to know each other, both parties believed it was a good fit.

“They've had some frustration over the last three years with the capital markets being challenging and passing on a couple of opportunities that they thought the REIT would take an interest in,” Leon explained about the impetus to go private.

“Once we got aligned and negotiated some joint venture terms, we had to run our numbers and figure out if we could make sense of a price that we thought would clear the market,” Leon continued. 

Mutually beneficial partnership

While Ottawa-headquartered Minto Group spun off Minto Apartment REIT in 2018, it has decades of experience, expertise and a vested interest in the multifamily space. It also has a property management arm, which Crestpoint doesn’t. 

In addition to the trust’s current portfolio of 28 apartment buildings — encompassing five million square feet in Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver — it also has two multifamily developments in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and an inventory of land for future development.

All of this was appealing to the Crestpoint Core Plus Real Estate Strategy, an open-ended fund that has a Canadian core and value-add portfolio of office, industrial, retail and multifamily properties in major urban markets and select secondary markets.

Crestpoint’s lowest exposure is in multifamily, so Leon believes adding a 50 per cent share of the Minto Apartment REIT portfolio at a fair price and being able to hold it for the long term will be very beneficial.

“We got prestige assets, we got new builds, we got core, we got value-add and we got a development pipeline, so that's great for us,” Leon explained. “They're the ones that are going to be leading the charge on renovating the suites and doing the cap ex program.  We're the ones who are going to look at strategies, where we want to focus our capital and how we want to finance the assets.

“I think the teams will mesh well. On some things we’ll work together, on some things we’ll take the lead, and in other aspects they'll take the lead.”

Minto Apartment REIT plans a special meeting in March for unitholders to vote on the transaction. If all approvals are forthcoming, the transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2026. 

Interests in four major asset classes

Current fundamentals and Canada’s economy, resources, political stability, healthcare and education systems make it a good time to buy multifamily assets for the long term, according to Leon.

Crestpoint is high on grocery-anchored and necessity retail and has been active in the space in the last few years even though it’s difficult to acquire scale.

Industrial has the heaviest weighting in Crestpoint’s portfolio and it will remain strong in the asset class. Crestpoint is developing a design-build facility for a large tenant in Brantford, Ont. and leasing has gone well for recently completed projects.

Leon expects to announce the development of a 700,000-square-foot-plus distribution centre in the GTA in the next few months.

Crestpoint took a hiatus from office acquisitions for almost four years, but has started buying again.

“I can't necessarily say all office has hit the bottom and is going up, but we think that for a number of well-located assets — especially if you're in a situation where you have the capital to keep up on the cap ex side and tenant improvement side — there's a good future in the office market,” Leon observed.

Crestpoint’s investment strategies

The past couple of years haven’t been entirely kind to the commercial real estate industry, but Crestpoint has been able to navigate its way through the turbulence.

Leon said the firm avoided too much concentration in larger assets that could be exposed to vacancies, took on little development with its open-ended fund, and has maintained fairly stable NOI, which investors have appreciated. 

While some large investors have been relatively quiet over the past couple of years, Crestpoint’s strategy of keeping some dry powder while also churning assets to recycle capital has given it the ability to acquire properties. 

As with Minto, several of these have involved partnerships with companies with aligned interests, good operating teams and access to opportunities that Crestpoint might not have on its own.

“We want to produce good long-term cash flows, and most of our partners are long-term thinkers and long-term holders,” Leon said. “That doesn't mean you won't sell an asset, it just means that you're not forced to sell.” 

Crestpoint also has a growing mortgage fund established in 2022 and focused on capital preservation and delivering consistent income.

Crestpoint Opportunistic Real Estate Strategy

The Crestpoint Opportunistic Real Estate Strategy, the firm’s first closed-ended fund, made its first acquisition in 2024: a Vancouver development site at 1318 Thurlow St. on which it plans to build a 32-storey rental apartment. The fund will hold a 77 per cent interest, with Anthem Properties holding the remaining 23 per cent.

Zoning has been approved, construction contracts are being tendered and the Vancouver development should get underway early in 2027.

The fund has since made two Toronto acquisitions, a suburban office building and a small-bay industrial portfolio. While Leon couldn’t reveal more because the deal has yet to close, he said the fund is acquiring a 27-property portfolio comprised mostly of retail with a little bit of office. 

While fundraising has closed for that fund, Leon said some investors have been asking Crestpoint to launch another closed-ended fund.

Affiliation with Connor, Clark & Lunn Financial Group

Crestpoint is an affiliate of Connor, Clark & Lunn Financial Group Ltd., an independent Canadian asset management firm whose affiliates collectively manage over $167 billion in global assets. 

Crestpoint, established in 2010, focuses on commercial real estate and debt investments. It manages more than $11 billion on behalf of institutional and high-net-worth clients via strategies spanning core-plus and opportunistic real estate, commercial debt, segregated funds and co-investments.

“We're active decision makers, we’re not just portfolio managers,” Leon said. “I think that's the kind of managers you want to invest with these days.”