THE OPPORTUNITY

New exponential technologies are disrupting real estate like never before.

WHY BRICKS SUISSE?

Bricks Suisse is built on two pillars. We invest in:

Smart real estate (the Bricks), and
Digital transformation of real estate (PropTech).

There is nothing as conservative as a real estate investment. But real estate is also challenging. Even though it’s the world’s biggest asset class (it’s more than the combined size of bonds and stocks!), it’s an inefficient asset class with less digitisation and adoption of new technologies. You cannot trade real estate the same way as bonds and stocks, the paperwork is massive, it’s an illiquid asset.

Well, that’s about to change.

WHAT IS SMART REAL ESTATE (THE BRICKS)?

Here are some examples of smart real estate:

Dubai's Burj Khalifa incorporates several smart building technologies, including real-time data to an analytics platform that analyzes the data for potential maintenance issues. Thanks to this system, facility managers have been able to improve building maintenance while reducing total maintenance hours by 40%.

Microsoft's headquarters in Amsterdam adapted a data-driven approach when renovating their buildings. They used sensors to monitor how desks, meeting rooms and communal areas were used. With this data, Microsoft was able to reduce the amount of space it needed, freeing up one-and-a-half floors.

Mexico is now home to the worlds first 3-D printed neighborhood. The construction was done in close collaboration with a US-based tech company. Each of the 500-square-foot homes took about 24 hours of print time.

Uber has entered a partnership with NASA to launch a flying taxi service by 2023. Real estate developers are now designing smart real estate to facilitate urban "skyports" to load and unload passengers and for vehicles to take off and land.

WHAT DRIVES THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION OF REAL ESTATE?

The percentage of the world population living in cities is expected to increase from 50% today to 70% in 2050.

Property technology (PropTech) disrupts and improves the way we buy, rent, sell, design, construct and manage residential and commercial property.

Due to a recent Deloitte study, PropTech soared with a growth of 1072% between 2015 and 2019. Despite the pandemic, this is a trend that continued in 2020.

In addition to our investments into smart real estate (the Bricks), we believe in growth in the following PropTech opportunities:

Apps: Improves user experiences and serves as the digital gateway to any smart building and community, including touchless entry with facial recognition, digital payments and automated sanitization measures. Business intelligence (big data) derived from such apps is one of the biggest trends in property management.

Artificial Intelligence: Machine Learning streamlines pattern recognition and generates actionable insights with predictive analytics. Example: Energy and property resource optimization.

Blockchain: Verified data is crucial. Blockchain increases transparency, removes paper-work with smart contracts and excludes numerous third-parties. Tokenization and fractional ownership of real estate is the next big thing.

Digital Twins: With digital twins, we can capture and analyze data in order to make real estate operations more efficient, improve user experiences and identify (potential) maintenance issues.

Printing: 3-D printing is transforming the speed and cost at which houses are being developed and sold. Dubai has set an ambitious goal of 3-D printing 25% of all new buildings by 2030.

Smart Living: Internet of Things (IoT) connects everything in a digital symbiosis, including smart thermostats, smart refrigerators and even smart toilets.

Virtual and Augmented Reality: In combination with digital twin data and artificial intelligence, a 360-degree VR tour can boost the user experience of any property with predictive analytics and virtual recommendations.

ESG COMPLIANT INVESTMENT THEMES

Our investments into smart real estate (the Bricks) include the following ESG-compliant investment themes:

Ecovillages: Initiative promoted by the United Nations. Residents grow as much of their own food as possible, create homes using local materials, operate renewable energy systems, protect nature and safeguard wilderness areas.

Sustainable Buildings: The real estate sector is responsible for 40% of the worlds energy consumption and 33% of all greenhouse gas emissions. Sustainable buildings with reduced carbon footprints is in very high demand.

Vertical Farming: Hydroponic farmhouses allow plants to grow in a nutrient solution without soil, and water usage efficiency is increased by approx. 70%. One acre in a skyscraper is equivalent to as many as 20 traditional soil-based acres. It's estimated that 150 vertical farms could feed everyone in New York City.

Sharing Economy: The fastest growing trend is the demand for rental units and for fast development of vertical rental properties (a trend also known as the “rent generation", accelerated by the Millennials).

Social Housing: We have exclusive access to Public Private Partnership (PPP) opportunities with governmental bodies in Emerging Markets, establishing low cost affordable housing for the growing middle class.

INVESTMENT PROCESS

Our investment process is based on two pillars: A “top-down” market-based assessment of an investment's potential, and a “bottom-up” analysis of its capacity to deliver growth.

Potential target investments undergo a multi-step due diligence and screening process. All steps are safeguarded by our Research and Investment Committees.

We take diversification and risk-adjustment very seriously. Our investment approach is agile and built to capture the market evolution, no matter where active return on investment is generated.

We have "skin in the game" and invest together with our partners.

About us