Optimizing Your Real Estate Portfolio

Investment banks and asset management firms operate in a high-stakes environment shaped by regulatory demands, in-office attendance requirements and finding the right balance of amenities and experience services. Real estate and facilities leaders play a pivotal role in helping firms navigate this complexity and reduce operational risk. Yet the path forward isn’t simple. From maximizing uptime through resilient infrastructure to designing workplaces that foster innovation, creativity and mentoring, CRE&F teams face challenges as multifaceted as the firms they support. Global footprints, specialized space requirements and brand-driven location needs only add to the complexity.

A unified, strategic approach to real estate helps cut through this. It aligns space with business goals, strengthens compliance across markets and enables quick adaptation—giving firms the flexibility to respond to change and unlock new value.

An Integrated Strategy Includes These Components

1. Integrated Facilities Management
   Consolidating facilities management and real estate services across regions unlocks flexibility and operational efficiency, allowing businesses to more quickly scale service delivery up or down to address shifting needs. Powered by technology and data analytics, this approach supports global consistency while reducing total cost of occupancy across all property types.
2. Workplace Strategy and Employee Experience
   Today’s talent expects more than a desk. Strategic investment in workplace experience—especially in high-performance environments like trading floors or deal teams—improves retention, supports attendance goals, and strengthens culture. A coordinated, hospitality-led approach enhances productivity while ensuring implementation is seamless and cost-effective.
3. Risk Management, Governance and Compliance
   In highly regulated industries, such as investment banking and asset management, risk management extends beyond transactions, it’s embedded in the workplace. A real estate partner with experience in high-security, regulated environments helps firms strengthen oversight, reduce risk, and gain visibility across global operations. Integrated governance frameworks, supported by real-time data, surface risks early and ensure consistent compliance across the portfolio.

Smart building technologies and data-driven insights are redefining how investment banks and asset managers manage real estate. With the right tools, CRE&F teams can continuously monitor performance, optimize space, and align environments with business outcomes—from trading floors to client lounges and back-office operations.

An integrated data strategy—one that spans occupancy, sustainability, cost, and experience—enables faster, more informed decisions. It empowers leaders to reduce total cost of occupancy, improve employee engagement, and ensure compliance, all while adapting to a dynamic workplace landscape.

Key Metrics That Drive Smarter Real Estate Decisions

1. Total Cost of Occupancy (TCO)
   As investment banks and asset management firms often manage large global portfolios with a mix of leased and owned locations, CRE&F teams must measure KPIs directly impacting TCO. Tracking TCO across leased and owned assets reveals opportunities to reduce spend and improve ROI. By analyzing rent, utilities, maintenance, taxes, and space utilization, leaders can uncover inefficiencies, renegotiate leases, and right-size the portfolio to support business goals.
2. Utilization Rate
   Effectiveness now trumps efficiency. Utilization rates—more insightful than attendance—reveal how well space supports productivity and collaboration. 79% of CBRE clients target utilization rates of 65% or more, but actual rates lag at around 40% globally. Regularly assessing workplace efficacy metrics like this can help CRE leaders identify opportunities to refine workplace strategies to bolster utilization.
3. Employee Experience and Engagement Scores
   Investment banks and asset management firms increasingly rank workplace experience as a key factor in real estate success—and, according to a recent CBRE study, employee engagement/satisfaction now ranks as the top CRE performance metric. KPIs like Employee Net Promoter Scores (eNPS), sentiment scores, and employee retention rates provide insights into what drives satisfaction—and where to invest in creating compelling workplace experiences.

Corporate real estate is no longer just a cost center, it’s a driver of business value. For investment banks and asset management firms, real estate decisions influence everything from client perception and talent retention to sustainability performance and operational agility. When aligned with enterprise strategy, the workplace becomes a tool to reduce overhead, foster innovation, and enhance collaboration. High-performing CRE&F teams don’t just manage space, they shape environments that fuel growth, strengthen internal cohesion, and position the business for long-term success.

Best Practices To Overcome Key Real Estate Challenges

1. Outsource or Consolidate Non-Core Business Functions
   Streamlining non-core operations through a single, trusted partner reduces complexity and enhances performance, allowing enterprises to focus on core business activities while enhancing operational efficiency. In-house or fragmented delivery through multiple providers often comes with high overhead costs, resource constraints and the complexities of managing a geographically dispersed portfolio. A centralized delivery model improves cost control, accelerates innovation, and mitigates risk—especially in high-security, regulated environments like trading floors and data centers.
2. Secure C-Suite Alignment for Sustainability Initiatives
   Sustainability progress requires capital and commitment. CRE leaders must translate emissions and energy data into actionable plans and then gain executive buy-in by framing initiatives around ROI, risk reduction and long-term value creation. As a firm's physical locations are an outward expression of its brand values, which include sustainability, locations must reflect these values in the form of energy efficiency and other sustainable design elements. Engaging stakeholders early builds momentum and unlocks resources.
3. Deploy Technology To Manage Space More Effectively
   Connected technologies—IoT, AI, and analytics—equip CRE teams to make real-time, portfolio-wide decisions. A smart space strategy begins with a diagnostic assessment, documenting a technology roadmap, establishing a data governance program and integrating data across platforms. The result: better decisions, better workplaces, and measurable outcomes.

From trading floors to global operations offices, we lead the industry in this highly regulated space. Our experts have rich experience providing occupier solutions to top commercial & investment banks and asset management firms. Our data-driven approach delivers the right space in the right locations, allowing businesses to maximize their real estate investment through real-time insights, innovative solutions and an engaged workforce. By leveraging people, processes and technology, CBRE helps enterprises discover unknown and untapped opportunities to achieve their long-term goals.

Realizing Value in Your Real Estate Portfolio

1. Integrated Facilities Management
   Our global operating model is hard services-led and empowered by technology with the ability to leverage the best supplier partners. Strengthened by our rigorous training program, facilities teams can expertly manage day-to-day operations and maintenance of facilities infrastructure, as well as IT hardware and software. We help clients achieve increased efficiency and operational reliability while reducing carbon and lowering cost with connected building automation, IoT, and data analytics solutions that leverage people, processes and integrated technology. Learn more about integrated facilities management.
2. Workplace Experience
   Improve employee experience and build loyalty and engagement with Host, our hospitality-trained experts and technology solution employed by many of the world’s largest companies and investors. Driven by people and technology, CBRE helps transform the workplace to help people perform, collaborate, and thrive. Learn more about workplace experience services.
3. Workplace Design and Management
   Unlock the power of the workplace with user-centered design, delivery and management services that drive business strategy, inspire human performance and increase employee engagement. As experiential designers, we place human experience at the center of our design process—resulting in engaging, life-centric spaces that spark imagination and create a sense of community to motivate and enhance people’s overall experience.
4. Occupancy Planning and Management
   Occupancy Management is more than seating charts. Our team is designed to support all your organizations’ occupancy needs. Whether your need is a single occupancy plan to support project delivery, or ongoing space management services to maintain accurate occupancy data, the CBRE platform brings together subject matter experts focused on providing the best solutions to improve portfolio insights. Learn more about Occupancy Management.
5. Data and Technology
   CBRE offers enterprise-grade technology across the entire real estate lifecycle. We integrate, build and scale with our clients to pilot real-world technologies that become industry standard. Seeing over 36 billion data points from over 300 global sources, CBRE connects data at scale, so you can proactively make portfolio decisions in real time for you and your organization. Learn more about CBRE’s data and technology platform.
6. Project and Program Management
   Our team uses an optimized service delivery process to manage every aspect of your project’s budget, schedule and scope in order to protect your interests throughout the entire real estate journey. The Project & Program Management Office (PMO) acts as an extension of a client's organization to standardize and provide project-related governance across a defined program, geography or region. The PMO also facilitates or directly coordinates the sharing of resources, methodologies, tools and techniques. This centralized end-to-end delivery model results in a collaborative environment with consistent project execution, supply chain management, rigorous fiscal governance and a commitment to innovation. Learn more about CBRE’s project management solutions.
7. Sustainability and Energy Management
   We help enterprises optimize their energy performance through strategic and turnkey solutions to support carbon reduction and net zero commitments to achieve their sustainability goals. Build a comprehensive roadmap for your sustainability goals, from establishing a baseline of comprehensive energy, emissions, water and waste data to setting targets and developing an actionable plan. Learn more about CBRE’s sustainability solutions.