Sam Mellor joins as head of real estate debt, Australia, effective immediately. With over 27 years of experience in the debt markets and portfolio management across Europe and Asia Pacific, Mellor will oversee PGIM’s Australian real estate debt strategies and portfolio management team.

Stuart Carr will join PGIM as head of real estate equity, Australia, in December 2025. Carr brings over two decades’ experience in Australian real estate development and transactions. He will oversee the equity transaction team and lead origination, investment execution, and divestment activities across Australia.

The newly created roles mark a significant step in the strategic growth of PGIM’s real estate business in Australia, deepening its debt and equity investment capabilities to support the ongoing success of its Asia Pacific fund series. Last year, PGIM launched its first dedicated Australian real estate debt strategy, which has since seen strong deployment and a robust pipeline of investment opportunities.

In the first three quarters of 2025, PGIM completed 17 transactions in Asia Pacific valued at nearly US$1.9 billion, including nine transactions in Australia across the office, industrial, retail and living sectors. In Australia, it completed five debt transactions for a total commitment of AU$283 million (US$188 million) and has four more loans in documentation that will soon take it over AU$500 million (US$330 million) deployed year to date. The Australia team has invested a further AU$660 million (US$435 million) in gross asset value on the equity side this year. With a strong pipeline of investment activities, the new appointments are set to accelerate its growth trajectory.

Based in Sydney, both Mellor and Carr will report to Steve Bulloch, head of Australia for PGIM’s real estate business and head of Asia Pacific real estate debt.

Bulloch commented: “Australia remains a strategic growth driver for PGIM’s real estate business in Asia Pacific. As we continue to invest throughout the region, the breadth and depth of Sam and Stuart’s expertise will not only strengthen our Australian debt and equity capabilities, their significant experience, capital relationships, and leadership skills will also be invaluable to our broader business.”

“The Australian market is well positioned with structural and cyclical drivers fuelling continued rental growth and relatively attractive asset pricing in many sectors. The shift across global credit markets from traditional bank lenders to alternative capital sources will continue to present compelling opportunities for institutional private lenders like PGIM. With the exciting opportunities ahead, Sam and Stuart will be instrumental in driving our next stage of growth,” he added.

As the world’s third-largest real estate investment manager,^[1] PGIM has a robust history of investing through market cycles with its strong on-the-ground origination and asset management capability. Since establishing a footprint in Australia in 2011, the team has built a track record of over 50 real estate debt and equity investments across all asset types and major cities in Australia, with a total loan and transaction volume in excess of AU$5.5 billion (US$3.7 billion).

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Notes:
[1] 1 As of 30 June 2025. Net AUM is US$138 billion and AUA is US$47 billion. PGIM Real Estate is the thirdlargest real estate investment manager (out of 72 firms surveyed) in terms of global real estate assets under management based on Pensions & Investments’ “Largest Real Estate Investment Managers” list published October 2024.

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With more than 15 years’ experience in investment consulting and institutional sales across public and private markets, Greyling’s addition reflects PGIM’s commitment to strengthening its alternatives franchise in Asia Pacific (APAC) under the newly formed PGIM Private Alternatives business.

Based in Sydney, Australia, Greyling will be responsible for developing and managing PGIM Private Alternatives’ institutional client relationships across APAC, with a focus on Australia and South East Asia. This includes capital raising, business development and product development for its global real estate debt and equity strategies, as well as private credit and private equity investment solutions.

Greyling will report to Eduard Wehry, Head of Asia Pacific Business Development, PGIM Private Alternatives.

“Daniel’s appointment reflects our commitment to deepening our alternatives capabilities and expanding our foothold in APAC under the new PGIM Private Alternatives business. With his strong in-market expertise and proven track record in building institutional relationships, I am confident that Daniel will play an instrumental role in supporting the growth of the business, especially at a time when institutional clients continue to increase their allocations to private alternatives,” said Wehry.

Greyling joins from MLC Asset Management, where he was Director Institutional Sales, tasked to manage its sales and marketing strategy for a broad suite of public and private products. Prior to that, he spent 12 years at Russell Investments where he was most recently Head of Institutional Sales, Australia and Global Head of ESG Sales. Greyling holds a Masters of Applied Finance at Macquarie University and a Bachelor of Business Finance/Banking at Charles Sturt University, Bathurst.

In September 2023, PGIM announced the formation of PGIM Private Alternatives, which brings together the firm’s private alternatives capabilities. It currently manages US$320.5 billion (as of March 31, 2024) in private alternative strategies across private credit, real estate equity and debt, private equity, and agriculture, with presence across six APAC cities and nearly 30 years of investment track record in the region. These strategies are managed by PGIM Real Estate (real estate and agriculture), PGIM Private Capital (private credit, infrastructure debt) and Montana Capital Partners (private equity secondaries).

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Shehriyar Antia

A surge in power demand fueled by artificial intelligence, the growing energy demands of a rising middle class in emerging market economies, rising geopolitical tensions, and the push to decarbonisation are combining to dramatically reshape the global energy system.

For investors, this new energy landscape offers both opportunities and hidden risks across a variety of sectors and asset classes, as well as wide-ranging portfolio implications, according to new research from PGIM, the $1.3 trillion global investment management business of Prudential Financial, Inc. (NYSE: PRU).

In “Fueling the Future: Investing Across the Global Energy Landscape,” the latest in PGIM’s Megatrends research series, 30 investment professionals from across PGIM’s fixed income, equity, real estate, and private alternatives managers lift the veil on their investment strategies amid the shift toward electrification and a low-carbon energy mix.

The research finds that despite the urgency of the Paris Climate Agreement and ambitious plans for green energy growth, the energy transition cannot happen everywhere all at once, and a simplistic strategy that divides the investment world into “brown” villains and “green” heroes will not be an effective approach to achieve environmental or fiduciary objectives.

“No source of energy and electricity is perfect,” said Shehriyar Antia, PGIM’s head of Thematic Research. “Whether an investor has decarbonisation objectives or not, it’s critical they understand which companies will power us through the energy transition and which technologies may not live up to the hype.”

Investing in enablers of the energy transition

Through each evolution of the energy system, legacy fuel sources have been supplemented, rather than completely replaced. Companies that supply, facilitate and adapt throughout the transition will offer the best investment opportunities:

• Critical components for renewable power infrastructure: Renewable power generation is soaring in every region. The global need for complementary infrastructure — like power storage and transmission — should drive demand for critical metals like copper and grid components. Additionally, emerging markets where renewables are just taking off, like India and Latin America, can present opportunities.
• Leaning into lower-carbon fossil fuels: There is a need to meet rising demand for energy while renewable power infrastructure is being built. Natural gas — especially where it displaces high carbon-emitting coal — is a key fuel source in this transitionary period. Indeed, global demand for liquid natural gas is expected to grow by over 50% by 2040 as the coal-to-gas transition expands in China and South Asia.
• Avoiding overhyped technology: Some speculative green technologies like hydrogen power, nuclear fusion and carbon capture hold great promise but face immense challenges to operationalise and scale in the near term. Furthermore, trendy green tech startups are not likely to displace incumbent global energy players. In fact, some research suggests traditional energy firms may actually be leaders in select areas of innovative green tech.

Opportunities across the globe

Renewables have increasingly become the first choice for new power generation around the world. However, the energy transition is playing out at different paces in different places:

• Debt opportunities in mature markets: Across renewable power projects in Europe and the U.S., there may be better opportunities in debt rather than equity, as debt financing tends to be less plentiful.
• Hydro and geothermal projects: These projects typically face less competition and obsolescence risk than wind and solar projects, and their debt can be very attractive — specifically recapitalisation of hydro projects in Scandinavia and Italy — as well as rebuild of legacy infrastructure in Chile, Peru, Brazil, and other parts of Latin America.
• Renewable power in emerging markets: India is already the world’s fourth-largest electricity consumer and third-largest renewable power producer. In this landscape of incredible growth, companies with a track record of execution on large-scale projects and relationships with local regulatory authorities can be attractive.
• Critical metals: Metals and minerals are key to renewables and their infrastructure. For example, Australia, which supplies about half of the world’s raw lithium, is expanding its capacity to process and export battery-ready minerals.

‘Big Oil’ adapts

PGIM’s research also identifies oil majors that are leaning into the energy transition — finding ways to remain energy providers regardless of what the primary energy sources might be. PGIM believes these firms are more likely to emerge as winners, in contrast to peers that rely on the extended sunset of fossil fuels and therefore run the risk of being rendered obsolete by efficiency gains and better infrastructure in renewables.

“How we can meet rising global demand for energy reliably, affordably and in a way that avoids environmental harm is one of the biggest challenges of our lifetimes,” said Taimur Hyat, PGIM’s chief operating officer, “Resolving these challenges will create several important long-term investment opportunities while requiring rigorous discipline in over-hyped areas where the rhetoric exceeds the attractive and accessible investment opportunity set.”

Read the paper: “Fueling the Future: Investing Across the Global Energy Landscape,”.

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Chris Briant

PGIM, the US$1.22 trillion global investment management business of US-based Prudential Financial, Inc. (NYSE: PRU) has appointed Chris Briant as head of the Institutional Relationship Group (IRG) for Australia and New Zealand, underscoring its commitment to the Australian market. Briant will be responsible for deepening PGIM’s institutional client coverage in support of its growth ambitions in the region.

As a strategic advisor to chief investment officers of the largest institutional investors in Australia and New Zealand, Briant will help address PGIM clients’ portfolio challenges by leveraging the firm’s multi-affiliate investment capabilities across public and private markets. He reports to Cameron Lochhead, global head of IRG.

Briant was most recently managing director at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, having joined its subsidiary Parametric Portfolio Associates as Parametric’s first Australasian CEO in 2013 to lead the buildout of its business, client and product growth. Prior to that, he held senior roles in investments implementation and business development at Russell Investments, BNP Paribas, and BT Portfolio Services.

“The appointment of Chris reiterates our long-term commitment to the Australian market,” said Lochhead. “Chris brings over three decades of expertise in the Australasian investment industry. As an experienced leader he has an impressive track record in growing businesses and strong relationships with a range of sophisticated asset owners. He will play a strategic role in expanding our institutional investor base in the region and architecting access to PGIM’s full suite of affiliate strategies and solutions.”

PGIM has built a strong footprint in Australia since 2011, supporting a growing network of institutional clients who seek diversified long-term investment solutions across the traditional and alternative asset classes. With a proven track record in private alternative investments, the firm has been managing multibillion-dollar client mandates on the ground, including Australian real estate equity and debt strategies via PGIM Real Estate, and providing debt financing to domestic corporations through PGIM Private Capital.

Briant said, “Very few managers rival PGIM’s scale, breadth and quality across public and private markets. I’m thrilled to be joining PGIM at a time when asset owners are rationalising their manager lineups to form fewer, deeper partnerships, and be part of its growth journey. I look forward to delivering our extensive capabilities to help asset owners solve their investment challenges, and ultimately improve the retirement outcomes for Australasians.”

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Raimondo Amabile

PGIM Real Estate, the US$210 billion real estate investment manager, has launched RealAssetX, an innovation lab to research, develop and invest in technology that aims to accelerate advancements in the real asset industry.

Underpinned by data from PGIM Real Estate and third-party data sources, RealAssetX will partner with leading universities around the world – working in the fields of sustainable tech, artificial intelligence (AI) and deep tech – to research and develop new technologies that can be incubated and eventually adopted by owners, operators and managers of real assets.

Raimondo Amabile, co-CEO and Global Chief Investment Officer at PGIM Real Estate, comments: “The profound impact that the fast-moving technology wave is having on the real asset industry means that investment managers’ success will be defined by their ability to be tech-enhanced through every stage of the investment lifecycle. By partnering with leading universities and technology companies, RealAssetX is building an ecosystem to develop new technologies that don’t exist today – leveraging forward-thinking research and development to drive transformation within PGIM Real Estate and the broader real asset industry.”

The ecosystem of RealAssetX comprises of three interconnected pillars:

• Data Intelligence: Building unique datasets and advanced analytics that combine unstructured third-party data with data accumulated by PGIM Real Estate over 50 years through the firm’s investment activities.
• Research & Development: RealAssetX is partnering with leading universities and technology companies globally to drive projects through from conception to incubation, funding and/or launch. This includes establishing an accelerator program for early-stage technology companies with research-led intellectual properties.
• • In Asia-Pacific, a partnership with the National University of Singapore explores research data and AI for predictive analytics, whilst a second partnership in the region with University of New South Wales focuses on deep tech and sustainability.
  • In the UK, RealAssetX is partnering with UCL (University College London) to launch the UCL Centre for Sustainability and RealTech Innovation, focusing on research projects in sustainability, AI, and innovation in real assets.
  • In the US, a partnership with the University of Chicago Data Science Institute will focus on big data analysis and AI for predictive analytics to improve investment decisions and portfolio construction processes.
• Investments: Developing strategic partnerships with venture capital firms to invest and deliver modern technologies for the industry. RealAssetX will partner with Taronga Ventures, a leading global real asset technology manager, to enable third-party capital to invest in early and later stage technology companies.

Cathy Marcus, co-CEO and Global Chief Operation Officer at PGIM Real Estate, continues: “We strongly believe that better technology can improve efficiency and create better investment performance. Through RealAssetX, we are leveraging the depth and breadth of PGIM Real Estate’s 53 years of data and research, alongside the insights and expertise of leading academics and venture partners, to identify and implement new technology that can improve business operations, augment asset management strategies at our properties and enhance investment decision-making on behalf of our clients.”

Over time, RealAssetX will form new strategic partnerships globally as its work develops across all three pillars.

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Daleep Singh

China’s economy faces markedly different risks than the West

Against the backdrop of an economic cycle plagued by the uneven recovery from the pandemic, the ongoing ripple effects from the war in Ukraine, and the loss of inflation-fighting credibility among major central banks, the global economy has so far evolved as expected: backward- and forward-looking data are showing clear downward trends for goods and shelter inflation in the US, while services inflation is beginning a gradual descent as wage growth shows nascent signs of moderation.

Relatedly, the unprecedented pace of monetary tightening by global central banks is slowing the momentum of the real economy, most visibly in the sectors most sensitive to interest rates, though the labor market and consumption remain more resilient than anticipated. Even more surprising has been the latest developments from China, where the exit from the “dynamic zero-Covid” policy has been faster and more wide-ranging than expected, perhaps offering the global economy a much-needed shot in the arm.

Collectively, the big question for investors worldwide is shifting from how much higher inflation and interest rates might go to how deep the growth slowdown will be and when policymakers will offer their support.

Taking into consideration the challenging mix of headwinds as described above, the risk of a US recession in 2023 remains elevated. Moreover, a contraction – if it materializes – will likely be larger than the “garden variety.” In the post-war period, the average peak-to-trough recession is 3.7 ppts of GDP, and our base case is for a 4.0% contraction. 

In terms of monetary policy, the favorable developments on inflation validate the Fed’s recent stepdown in the pace of tightening. From the current bound of 4.5%, the Fed Funds Rate is expected to peak at 5% by the March meeting, although risks remain skewed to the upside if the labor market remains tighter – and services prices remain higher – for longer than currently expected. Our base case is for the PCE price index to fall to 2.5% by Q4 2023, allowing the Fed to pivot towards a more neutral posture amid the economic downturn by delivering 50-75 bps of rate cuts by the end of 2023. However, the path back to the Fed’s 2% inflation target may not be linear, as the structural forces described above exert upward pressure on trend inflation and may keep policy rates near the peak for longer than envisioned.

In contrast to the US, Europe faces a stark and very real possibility of stagflation. Euro-area GDP is expected to contract by 0.9% by end-2023, which is lower than the median consensus of a 0.1% decline. While many analysts expect an economic rebound by the second half of next year, there is a high likelihood that the growth momentum will be sapped by a further curtailment of Russian energy imports to roughly 15 billion cubic meters (bcm) from around 70 bcm in 2022.

Across the English Channel, financial stability in the UK looks to have mostly recovered as institutional credibility is clawed back with a new government and a reset of fiscal policy. Despite the prospect of weak growth and high inflation, the central bank has managed to steer clear of actions that would further spook investors, and while GDP will likely decline by 1.4% in 2023, high inflation will necessitate the BOE raising the bank rate to around 5% by year-end from 3.5% currently.

Meanwhile, China has abandoned its dramatic zero-Covid restrictions much faster than expected. Despite this shift, the economic patterns associated with re-opening in the rest of the world will unlikely apply to China, as the country’s industrial sector never completely shut down production. For this reason, the industrial and manufacturing sectors should see only a limited re-opening bounce. However, key services, such as restaurant and entertainment as well as travel and tourism, experienced a massive drop during the past three years, and the services sector is expected to be the main beneficiary of the re-opened economy.

Overall, the re-opening by itself is not expected to lift the country to a significantly higher growth trajectory. For that to happen, the free fall in the property sector – largely a result of the “Three Red Lines” policy enacted in mid-2021 – has to be arrested. Since November and December of last year, the policy has been actively reversed, and additional policy support is expected for the sector.

Besides the re-opened economy, a stabilized property sector and fiscal stimulus in infrastructure should be sufficient for the economy to bounce back in 2023, and we’re sticking to our above-consensus forecast of 5.7% annual average growth, which will attenuate the global growth drags emanating from developed markets to some degree.

Beyond the near term, however, nothing but headwinds are expected. Cyclically, external demand, China’s last remaining growth driver last year, is stalling as global consumers tighten their belts. Structural headwinds present even more challenges to growth in the long run. In the past, the debt-driven investment in properties was a key growth driver, which is not expected to return. Furthermore, overinvestment extends to many other sectors, making further capital accumulation an unlikely growth driver. If history is any guide, China’s total factor productivity increase has slowed to a pace that seems insufficient to escape the middle-income trap.

In sum, our fundamental framework for understanding the triggers of recession reinforces our downbeat outlook for the global economy in the year ahead. However, the probability of brighter scenarios – including a “soft landing” of growth back to trend levels in the US, or even a “nominal GDP” boom driven by the sizeable public investments legislated in the past year – has moved higher in recent months, particularly with inflation retreating from the recent peak. These positive developments provide monetary policymakers with more flexibility to steer the global economy towards continued expansion, even in an environment of ongoing and persistent shocks, and our mindset will remain humble and open-minded to a wide range of outcomes as the year unfolds.

By Daleep Singh, Chief Global Economist at PGIM Fixed Income

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