PERE: Q&A with Global CEO Mark Gabbay

This article first appeared in the July 2025 edition of PERE

LaSalle’s Global CEO, Mark Gabbay, sat down with PERE for the magazine’s 20th anniversary special edition to discuss the real estate industry’s transformation over the past decade, LaSalle’s own evolution in that time, and the opportunities and risks ahead.

Real estate: The world’s simplest, most complicated asset class

Significant growth in real estate investment managers’ offerings has created unprecedented opportunities for investors to customize portfolios. But, as Mark explains, understanding relative value across sectors and geographies is crucial to long-term returns and outperformance.

While fundamentally real estate is composed of bricks and mortar that everyone understands, that hides its complexity. There is potential for real estate to shine as it acts as a diversifier in a volatile world, and faces potentially less demanding valuations than, say, large-cap equities. But it will be essential to be nimble and adapt to fast-changing relative value within the asset class.

Their discussion also covered the explosive growth in capital formation, the industry’s diversification of capital sources and LaSalle’s recalibration to mirror its global footprint.