Claude Kandiyoti and the Belgian-origin capital architects quietly deploying institutional real estate across Europe

European commercial real estate investment reached €244.5 billion for the full year 2025, according to CBRE. Behind that headline figure, a less visible but increasingly consequential trend is taking shape: a cohort of Belgian-origin and Benelux-adjacent principals is deploying institutional-scale capital across the continent's most structurally undersupplied markets. Claude Kandiyoti, Michael Abel, and Marco Zarges represent distinct but converging strategies, each anchored in deep European networks and a conviction that repriced assets and demographic pressures will deliver outsized returns over the next cycle.

Savills forecasts European real estate investment volumes to rise by around 18% in 2026, even as Eurozone GDP is projected to expand by just under 1.0% over the same period, according to CBRE. The gap between modest economic growth and accelerating capital deployment underscores a fundamental thesis shared by these principals: real estate repricing has created a generational entry point, and structural demand drivers, particularly in residential and logistics, will sustain performance regardless of macroeconomic headwinds.

Who is Claude Kandiyoti and what is Krest Real Estate's European strategy?

Claude Kandiyoti is the founder and principal behind Krest Real Estate Investments, a Belgian-origin family-owned investment platform that has been active in European real estate for over a decade. Krest entered the Portuguese market in 2013, well ahead of the wave of institutional capital that would follow in subsequent years, and has built a portfolio concentrated in mixed-use development and affordable housing.

As of 2022, Krest managed a portfolio of 600,000 square metres under development and management, according to data from GRI Institute and investment reports. As a private, family-owned business, Krest does not regularly disclose updated assets under management figures, making it one of the more opaque but significant players in the Iberian investment landscape.

Kandiyoti's early positioning in Portugal proved prescient. The country's Simplex Programme, a regulatory initiative designed to accelerate urban planning applications and simplify licensing processes, has since improved the operating environment for developers. Portugal's structural undersupply of housing, combined with regulatory reform, has turned Lisbon and Porto into magnets for institutional residential capital.

Krest's focus on affordable housing aligns with a broader European policy shift. The European Affordable Housing Plan, an EU-level initiative active in 2026, aims to stimulate housing supply and attract private investment to address chronic residential shortages across member states. Kandiyoti's portfolio, rooted in mixed-use and affordability-oriented development, positions Krest at the intersection of policy tailwinds and market demand.

Belgian-origin capital in European real estate operates through a distinct ecosystem. Brussels-anchored family offices, diamond-district wealth networks, and entrepreneurial principals like Kandiyoti have historically deployed capital with a longer time horizon and lower leverage than institutional fund managers. This approach has allowed them to enter markets earlier, hold assets through cycles, and build concentrated portfolios with deep local expertise.

How are Greykite and Zaga Capital capitalising on repriced European assets?

The recovery in European investment volumes is being led by principals willing to deploy capital at scale into assets that have repriced significantly from their 2021 peaks. Two firms stand out for the speed and conviction of their deployment: Greykite, led by Michael Abel, and Zaga Capital Partners, co-founded by Marco Zarges.

Greykite European Real Estate Fund I reached $1.4 billion in capital commitments by its second close, according to PERE. Since its launch in March 2024, the platform has amassed over $3 billion in assets under management, a pace of accumulation that places it among the fastest-growing European real estate investment vehicles of the current cycle. Greykite's strategy targets repriced institutional assets across multiple European markets, with a focus on logistics and living sectors where structural demand fundamentals remain robust.

The speed of Greykite's capital formation reflects a broader institutional appetite for European real estate exposure at current valuations. Private investment in European living sectors, including multifamily and purpose-built student accommodation, reached €46.9 billion in 2025, according to JLL. This capital flow underscores the conviction among allocators that residential and living assets offer defensive yield characteristics in a low-growth environment.

Zaga Capital Partners, co-founded by Marco Zarges, has pursued a highly concentrated strategy in German residential. The firm secured approximately €500 million in total equity for its German residential strategy, including a €210 million first close for its Opportunities II Fund, according to IPE Real Assets. Zaga Capital's fund is seeded by a 14,000-unit portfolio of residential-for-rent properties in Germany valued at €1.4 billion.

The strategic logic behind Zaga Capital's approach is grounded in Germany's acute housing deficit. The Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development estimates that Germany requires at least 320,000 new homes to be built every year until 2030 to meet housing demand. Actual completions have consistently fallen short of this target, creating a structural undersupply that supports rental growth and asset appreciation for existing portfolios.

Zaga Capital acquired its seed portfolio at a significant discount to peak 2021 values, a move that exemplifies the contrarian deployment thesis shared by this cohort of principals. Purchasing large-scale residential portfolios at repriced levels, in a market where new supply cannot keep pace with demand, creates a compelling risk-return profile for institutional capital.

A distinct capital corridor emerges

The Belgian and Benelux-adjacent capital corridor in European real estate is distinct from the Dutch and Nordic flows that have received greater coverage in institutional media. Belgian-origin principals tend to operate through private, family-controlled vehicles rather than listed platforms or large institutional fund structures. This gives them flexibility in deal structuring, longer hold periods, and the ability to pursue opportunities that larger, more constrained institutional investors may overlook.

Claude Kandiyoti's Krest Real Estate exemplifies this model. By entering Portugal's market more than a decade ago and building a concentrated mixed-use and affordable housing portfolio, Kandiyoti established a presence that would be difficult and expensive for later entrants to replicate. The platform's private structure means it can operate without the quarterly reporting pressures and redemption risks that shape the behaviour of listed or open-ended fund vehicles.

Greykite and Zaga Capital, while operating at a larger institutional scale, share a common thread with Krest: all three platforms are led by European-origin principals with deep continental networks, deploying capital with conviction into markets where structural fundamentals override cyclical concerns.

Members of GRI Institute who engage with European capital flows have noted the increasing visibility of this Benelux-anchored cohort in cross-border transactions. At GRI Institute events, discussions around Belgian and Benelux-origin family office capital have gained prominence as allocators seek to understand the decision-making frameworks and risk appetites that differentiate these principals from their Anglo-Saxon and Nordic counterparts.

What does the data signal for 2026 deployment?

The combination of rising investment volumes, structural housing deficits, and repriced asset values creates a favourable environment for the strategies pursued by Kandiyoti, Abel, and Zarges. With Savills forecasting an 18% increase in European real estate investment volumes in 2026, the competitive landscape for assets will intensify.

European real estate is entering a phase where capital availability exceeds the supply of investable, repriced assets, creating a window that favours principals who moved early. Greykite's rapid scaling to over $3 billion in assets under management demonstrates the institutional appetite for platforms that can source and execute at speed. Zaga Capital's acquisition of a 14,000-unit German residential portfolio at significant discounts illustrates the returns available to investors with sector-specific expertise and conviction.

For Claude Kandiyoti and Krest Real Estate, the current environment validates a long-held thesis: affordable and mixed-use development in structurally undersupplied European markets delivers resilient returns across cycles. As the European Affordable Housing Plan channels policy support toward private capital participation in residential development, platforms with established track records in this segment stand to benefit from both capital inflows and regulatory tailwinds.

The Belgian-origin capital architects of European real estate may operate with less visibility than their larger institutional peers, but the scale and conviction of their deployment signal a structural shift in how cross-border capital flows through the continent's property markets. GRI Institute will continue to track this evolving capital corridor as data from 2026 fund closes and portfolio transactions becomes available.