Last week, Aquis Real Asset Market (Aram) launched within the Aquis Stock Exchange to provide a new tradeable marketplace for the securitisation of real assets.

Retail exchange: Aquis has announced that Yorkshire development Scotch Corner Designer Village will be the first asset listed on the Aram property trading platform

This new venture will provide an alternative market to the London Stock Exchange (LSE) for traditional REITs.

Aram says the launch of the exchange will help democratise access to the real estate market and claims that its platform will help London keep its competitive edge as a global financial hub.

The market does have some early momentum. Aram’s debut initial public offering (IPO) has been announced as Scotch Corner Designer Village, a retail and leisure development between York and Darlington. Scotch Corner will list on Aram to part fund the first phase of the scheme ahead of its planned opening in 2027.

Meanwhile, residential property specialist Zentra, which de-listed from the LSE in December to trade on Aquis’s early-stage Access segment, has said it will list itself and individual assets on Aram.

Aram has a heavyweight management team led by Michael Lynagh, an ex-managing director of Dow Jones Commercial EMEA and former Australian rugby union player who was a member of the 1991 World Cup-winning team. He says Aram is exactly what the City needs following its recent struggles.

The beauty of Aram is that you can invest in a specific asset or strategy
Nick Leslau, Prestbury Investments

Lynagh tells Property Week: “With many property companies and REITs, each with different properties and management structures, trading at significant discounts to net asset value [NAV], our hope is that some of these managers will also see an opportunity with Aram.

“By taking a single asset out, retaining 51% ownership and listing it on Aram, they could demonstrate the asset’s true value. If the asset trades closer to its book valuation on Aram, it would help validate their NAV assumptions. Ultimately, this could support their share price, too.”

The real asset securities, including commercial real estate, real estate debt securities and infrastructure, will be tradeable by both institutional and retail investors.

These investors will have the opportunity to receive private-equity-style returns – usually reserved for professional investors and developers. Investors will be able to buy shares in real assets and choose from different asset types to diversify, giving them partial ownership of the underlying asset without directly managing property. Aram will also give developers access to capital.

Assets on Aram will be publicly traded so investors can benefit from greater clarity on their valuations compared with private markets.

The Aquis Stock Exchange, a recognised challenger investment exchange in the UK and part of European challenger trading market SIX Swiss Exchange, will provide the regulatory framework, market connectivity and trading infrastructure.

The Aram advisory team includes Jonathan Clelland, former chief operating officer at Aquis Exchange; Donall McCann, director at Duneane Asset Management; Rob Rackind, non-executive chairman of Inhale Capital and former global head of real estate at Credit Suisse Asset Management; and Richard Croft, chief executive of Martley Capital.

Failure to deliver: The Mailbox was one of just three assets listed on the IPSX index, which was wound down in 2023

Croft was previously involved in the January 2019 launch of the International Property Securities Exchange (IPSX), the world’s first exchange dedicated to real estate asset trading. However, IPSX was wound down in 2023 after gaining just three asset listings – including Mailbox REIT, owner of Birmingham shopping and office scheme The Mailbox – all linked to founding IPSX shareholder M7 Real Estate. This led to a lack of liquidity, resulting
in its failure.

So, how will Aram avoid a similar fate? The main difference is that Aram is part of an existing exchange; Aquis has more than 100 listed companies, Croft says. “You can trade Aquis stocks via Hargreaves Lansdown, AJ Bell and other platforms. It’s a functioning market.”

While IPSX was a recognised investment exchange, it was not connected to Bloomberg, so pricing data was not visible, meaning that most brokers could not interact with it.

Croft says: “It was like building a house and forgetting to install the plumbing. Bloomberg won’t carry pricing from an exchange unless it has 15 to 20 active listings. But how do you get 15 to 20 listings without exposure? It’s a catch-22 situation. So, building a new exchange from scratch today is almost impossible.”

Broad pool of potential investors

According to Aram director Clelland, there is a broad pool of potential investors who do not invest in property simply because they do not see enough transparency, something Aram aims to change.

“Once that’s in place, sentiment can shift quickly; assets previously seen as illiquid can suddenly become investable, as people begin to recognise their value,” he says. “Our goal is to make real estate more accessible to a wider audience, offering investors a broader range of opportunities in terms of the types of real estate they can invest in.”

Shareholders of Aram include Prestbury Investments chairman Nick Leslau. He says the real estate market is doing “the opposite of what it should – it’s becoming less liquid for the public to access”.

He adds: “Whether you’re a generalist equity investor or institutional, opportunities are shrinking amid consolidation. That’s mad, because real estate is the world’s largest asset class. Retail investing is growing fast, yet access is falling.

“If I want to invest in a specific property sector, it’s hard to do that now. I might want only logistics, not development. Even if I buy SEGRO, I’m buying a cocktail of assets and it’s trading at a discount.

“The beauty of Aram is that you can invest in a specific asset or strategy. That gives the investor more control and transparency.” Leslau adds that Aram will tick many boxes, not only for private investors but for institutional ones, too.

Simon Waterfield, owner and developer of Scotch Corner Designer Village, says he anticipates that Aram’s unique structure will allow strong trading of shares and, as the asset matures, provide income and capital returns that might not be forthcoming if held in a traditional illiquid structure.

“Aram is an affordable exchange providing ongoing access to capital at competitive pricing,” Waterfield says. “The opportunity for securitisation and fractionalisation is good for all. It makes Scotch Corner Designer Village a liquid asset in which shares can be traded by all tiers of investors.”

Croft adds: “Aram will be a traditionally securitised market, but we’re also exploring how to create a tokenised real estate market. That is complex and heavily regulated, but by partnering with Aquis, which is primarily a software firm, we have a huge advantage.”