CEO’s review

The market conditions continued to be challenging, and especially the first half of 2025 showed increased economic and geopolitical uncertainty, which spike with the US tariff announcements in April. While the uncertainty had limited immediate impact on CapMan’s existing fee generating business, which is based on long-term agreements with good predictability, the fundraising market continued to be subdued with prolonged processes.

Despite the overall market sentiment, we took in some EUR 1.5 billion of new capital during the year by raising EUR 900 million to our funds and adding EUR 600 million of assets under management through the acquisition of CAERUS. With a significant number of successful exits completed during the year, the net growth in assets under management was EUR 1.1 billion. This is an excellent achievement and shows the strong track record of our investment strategies, the dedication of our teams and the trust we have built among our fund investors. Private markets continue to offer an attractive alternative for investors seeking diversification benefits, and the market is expected to continue to show attractive growth over the mid- and long-term.

Increased investment activity and strong sustainable value creation across funds

Fund returns across all CapMan investment areas continued to develop positively during the year, and both new investments and exits returned to healthy levels. CapMan’s DNA of active value creation is a strategic advantage especially in turbulent economic times. By working closely with our assets, we actively create value, drive growth, adapt to changing external requirements and work to future-proof the assets.

The Nordic real estate market has offered attractive opportunities, and CapMan Real Estate made six new investments in 2025. In addition, the acquisition of Midstar hotel portfolio with 28 properties made Hotels II fund a leading private Nordic hotel platform. Sustainable asset management and value creation enables exits also in tougher market conditions, and the team completed three exits with excellent returns.

CapMan Infra has made several add-on acquisitions during the year to develop assets and accelerate growth. Introducing innovative sustainable solutions together with our portfolio companies is at the core of value creation work. One concrete example of this is the development of the world’s largest sand-based thermal storage, also known as a sand battery, at Loviisan Lämpö’s district heating network in Finland. This is also a good example of how cost-efficiency, financial returns and sustainability come together in our investments.

CapMan Natural Capital had a strong year that was concluded with the first closing of the flagship fund European Forest Fund IV in December. The team also demonstrated their long-term value creation capabilities in active forest management through realising excellent returns in the exits of a portfolio of approximately 24,000 hectares of forest assets located in Latvia and Lithuania and by beginning to divest their eucalyptus portfolio in Portugal. CapMan Natural Capital continues to be one of the largest independent forest owners in the European Union, with operations in eight countries.

CapMan Real Asset Debt is the latest addition to our diversified offering. Real Asset Debt was established through the partnership with CAERUS Debt Investments AG, where CapMan acquired a majority in July. CAERUS is a German pioneer and one of the leading real estate debt managers in Central Europe. By expanding into real asset debt, we are enhancing our sector expertise. It is an attractive asset class with several benefits such as stable yield, downside protection, diversification and attractive risk adjusted returns, which complements CapMan’s other real asset investment strategies.

In CapMan Private Equity and Credit funds, we have made several transactions in 2025. CapMan Buyout has made five exits, out of which three from the latest Buyout XI fund, while Growth made both an exit in their second fund and an investment in the third. Special Situations and Nest Capital also made one new investment each.

Assets under management on new record level

CapMan is the preferred partner for international institutional investors looking for attractive returns in the Nordic region. Over half of CapMan’s assets under management comes from investors outside of the Nordic region. CapMan continues to increase its investor base, and some 60% of new capital raised came from new investors, and some 20% was raised by cross-selling to investors who were new to the investment team in question. By offering multiple strategies and asset classes, CapMan is well positioned to serve also those investors who prefer to allocate capital mainly through select partners.

Our assets under management reached a new record level in 2025 and stood at EUR 7.2 billion at the end of the year. This is a stellar achievement, representing a growth of 19%, clearly exceeding the overall market growth rate. Majority of the new capital raised was into the specialised open-ended Real Estate funds Hotels II, Social Real Estate and Residential.

Natural Capital held the first close in European Forest Fund IV in December and the fundraising continues in 2026. Real Estate has a strong pipeline, having already early 2026 secured the option for the first investment into the Nordic Real Estate IV fund that is being raised. In Real Asset Debt we are raising the eighth CAERUS real estate debt fund and in parallel explore the possibility to expand flagship funds are expected to be larger than their predecessor funds, and once realised, contributing significantly to assets under management and fee income generation for several future years to come.

Sustainable value creation through active ownership

Through the assets we invest in and the work we do as active owners to develop them during our ownership period we contribute to building the society we want to see in the future. For CapMan making a positive contribution to the sustainability of the properties and portfolio companies in our funds is an important part of financial value creation.

Our sustainability value creation is recognised throughout the industry. In the annual GRESB assessment, the leading sustainability benchmark, both Real Estate and Infra improved their scores and four Real Estate funds were awarded the highest rating of five stars.

Sustainability is important also in our own operations. Investing in people and building a workplace where top performers can thrive is key in building a scalable, profitable business. Our eNPS. which measures employee satisfaction, reached an outstanding score of 51 in 2025. For the Inclusion index we achieved another high score of 81. By providing meaningful work we can continue to the offering into infrastructure debt. Additionally, Infra will launch the fundraising for the Nordic Infrastructure III flagship fund during 2026. All four above mentioned attract the best professionals in the industry. I am especially proud of how we are creating opportunities for people in the beginning of their careers through our internship programme. This is a concrete example of how we also contribute to growing professionals for the society of the future.

Continuing the journey to become the most responsible private assets company in the Nordics

CapMan is an active, responsible investor with focus on the real assets market, where we expect to see attractive and continued growth. We gave a deep-dive to the current strategy in our Capital Markets Day in March 2025, highlighting also the drivers supporting shareholder value creation. The focus remains clear – we are positioned for profitable growth through scaling real asset investment strategies, launching new products and advancing targeted acquisitions.

A warm thank you to our shareholders and fund investors for your continued trust. I also want to thank CapMan’s leadership and all employees for your commitment and for creating the highly professional can-do culture that makes CapMan unique. I feel honoured to lead this growth chapter of CapMan and look forward to continuing to build value together with and for all our stakeholders.

Pia Kåll
CEO, CapMan Plc