Real estate investment funds (REITs) issued R$ 13.8 billion in new shares in November, according to data from Anbima. These figures not only represent a record for issuances in a single month, but also make 2025 the year with the highest volume ever issued.
Through November, the accumulated amount in emissions reached R$ 56.7 billion, surpassing the previous record of R$ 52.3 billion, registered in 2021. The trend is for this number to grow significantly by the end of the year, given that December is historically a month with more emissions.
Two main factors have sustained this high volume of issuances: the consolidation movement among funds and the acquisition of real estate through the exchange of assets for shares , in a context of lower liquidity in the real estate market.
“Years ago, a higher volume of issuances would be explained by the growth of individual investors in REITs. Today, this volume comes much more from fund mergers and asset swaps,” says Pedro Ferronato, co-manager of credit and partner at Paladin , to NeoFeed .
Given the difficulty of making cash purchases, exchanging real estate for shares has become a common alternative. In the market, several asset management firms have adopted this model, such as TRX , Hedge , and Patria .
TRX is offering up to R$3 billion. Of this amount, R$1.9 billion will be allocated to the delivery of shares for real estate acquisitions. Acceptance of receiving payment in shares has increased significantly, according to Gabriel Barbosa, partner responsible for investor relations and fund management at TRX.
"After we made a smaller issuance at the beginning of the year, many property owners started contacting us to sell properties in exchange for shares," says Barbosa.
One factor contributing to this higher volume of acquisitions through the issuance of shares is the increase in transactions in the REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) market. According to data from B3 (the Brazilian stock exchange), the market's daily turnover increased by almost 20% in November, reaching R$ 439 million – well above the year's average of R$ 327 million per day.
Mergers and reorganizations between funds — both within the same asset manager and in acquisitions of investment firms — also contributed to inflating the volume of issuances.
In these cases, the issuance of new units is used as a tool to integrate one fund into another, enabling the transfer of assets and the consolidation of structures, without necessarily representing the entry of new resources into the market.
Even with record-high issuances, individual investors, the main players in this market, remain on the sidelines. In terms of the number of investors, growth this year is less than 5%, while the average trading volume is down 6% compared to 2024.
On the other hand, institutional investors, who are still a minority in custody positions, have become the majority in trading. In November, they accounted for 66.5% of the traded volume, while in 2024 their share was around 40%.
“It is the institutional investors who explain this increase in the volume of transactions. And this may be related to the sale of quotas issued to pay for new acquisitions,” says Gabriel Marreta, co-manager of credit and partner at Paladin.
Inspiration from FIDCs
In addition to listed REITs, Adriano Mantesso, head of real estate at Tivio Capital , adds that new regulations allowing the issuance of subordinated shares of real estate funds also influenced the increase in volume.
“We ourselves had gone three years without raising capital, and we managed to raise R$ 400 million in November through senior and subordinated shares,” says Mantesso.
This new structure was made possible by the update to CVM Instruction 175, which allowed real estate investment funds to issue senior and subordinated shares, especially for credit-focused REITs. The model is similar to that used for a long time in FIDCs (Credit Rights Investment Funds), the fastest-growing fund category in the country .
Senior investors, in practice, gain greater predictability of returns and an additional layer of protection against portfolio default, while subordinated investors assume more risk in exchange for a higher potential return, absorbing any losses from the fund.
At Tivio, this structure was implemented in the Opportunities fund, which invests in shares of other real estate funds and is not listed on the stock exchange. "In the senior share, we put fixed income on top of variable income," comments the manager.
According to Mantesso, this was already a long-standing demand in the market. "People were already looking for something more like fixed income. This change has fueled investor appetite, as investors were more wary of stock market volatility, which hurt them a bit in the past."
