Avenue Living Increases AUM by $1.5 Billion in 18 Months, Raising Total AUM to More Than $3 Billion

CALGARY, ABSept. 28, 2021 /CNW/ – Avenue Living Asset Management (Avenue Living) is pleased to announce it has surpassed $3 billion in assets under management (AUM), adding to its historic year of milestones through a series of strategic acquisitions.

In the past year and a half, Avenue Living has added $1.5 billion in assets, more than doubling its portfolio during the global pandemic. Avenue Living has proven the resilience of its business model and vertically integrated platform of shared services, which supports the organization’s multi-family residential, commercial, agricultural, and self-storage interests.

“Recent multi-family acquisitions throughout Western Canada, coupled with our ongoing U.S. acquisitions on the multi-family side and the growth of our self-storage business have contributed to this significant $3 billion milestone,” said Anthony Giuffre, Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Chairman, Avenue Living Group of Companies. “We carefully choose opportunities and build infrastructure that supports everything we do – we’re champions of the everyday. The strength of our platform lies in having sound mind and management — working with the right people, both in our own offices and other areas to help us serve our investors and communities, and to continue to deliver to the Avenue Living gold standard.”

Today’s renters expect property owners and managers to provide them with a responsive customer experience and to invest in maintenance and improvements, especially in aging buildings. Many smaller operators are not able to invest the capital required to maintain operations that meet those expectations. For Avenue Living, these properties present an opportunity to consolidate fragmented industries and, through active management as well as strategic capital expenditures, provide a best-in-class experience for tenants and drive value for investors.

Avenue Living’s flagship trust, the Avenue Living Real Estate Core Trust — which acquires quality multi-family assets — is in a good place to meet the growing demand for housing affordability. Since its inception in 2006, the company has stayed true to its unique selling proposition of offering safe, quality, comfortable, and affordable rental spaces, with intentional emphasis placed on creating a positive resident experience.

“The greatest indicator of success is customer retention, and at Avenue Living, we ensure this through maintaining high customer service standards,” said Giuffre. “Historically, there’s been a certain predictability to the asset classes we invest in, and that’s what investors are looking for.”

Avenue Living takes a holistic, customer-centric approach when it comes to all aspects of its operations — from collections to leases, renewals, maintenance, capital expenditures, and expense management. The company starts with its customers’ needs and maps out the entire customer journey, from brand awareness through to advocacy. The organization has also leaned on property technology, or “prop-tech,” such as electronic leasing, to simplify basic processes for its residents and tenants, which has further enabled the efficient delivery of its value proposition.

In doing this, Avenue Living offers value to its customers — whether these customers are residents of their multi-family properties or tenants of their commercial, agricultural land or self-storage offerings.

“The pandemic truly tested the resilience of our investment thesis. Our choice of investing in ‘the everyday’ coupled with the tenacity of our customer and employee base has allowed us to achieve this milestone,” said Giuffre. “As we look ahead at the remainder of 2021 and beyond, we see a significant opportunity for the Avenue Living Group of Companies to continue to fire on all cylinders.”

About Avenue Living Asset Management:

Avenue Living Asset Management is a leading Canadian alternative asset manager with over $3 billion in assets under management and five alternative investment products. Avenue Living has amassed over 12,000 doors in Canada, making it one of Canada’s largest multi-family residential providers by serving more than 25,000 Canadians across 17 markets. Its U.S. multi-family fund exceeds $100 million in AUM and its self-storage fund has more than $300 million in AUM. Avenue Living’s agriculture fund has expanded its acres under management to more than 48,000, raising its AUM to more than $90 million.


This commentary and the information contained herein are for educational and informational purposes only and do not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy any securities or related financial instruments. This article may contain forward-looking statements. Readers should refer to information contained on our website at www.alamstg.wpenginepowered.com for additional information regarding forward-looking statements and certain risks associated with them.

Investing In the Everyday — Business In Calgary Magazine

Avenue Living Founder and CEO, Anthony Giuffre is on the September cover of Business in Calgary Magazine. He is featured in the story ‘Investing in the Everyday’, where he talks about Avenue Living’s continued success, and how our strategic investment platform has enabled us to become one of Western Canada’s largest private real estate owner/operators.


This commentary and the information contained herein are for educational and informational purposes only and do not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities or related financial instruments. This article may contain forward-looking statements. Readers should refer to information contained on our website at www.alamstg.wpenginepowered.com for additional information regarding forward-looking statements and certain risks associated with them.

Avenue Living’s Mid-Year Review And Recap

In what has been an exciting start to 2021, the Avenue Living Group has strategically grown our portfolio to over $2.8 billion in assets under management (AUM).

Some of our notable Q1 and Q2 highlights:

Core Trust Acquired $275 million in assets within one week in Edmonton, which included 1,566 doors. The Edmonton market now accounts for 25 per cent of our multi-family portfolio.

The portfolio acquisition of 874 apartments and townhomes in the Hermitage community in Edmonton further solidifies Avenue Living’s place as one of Canada’s leading Real Estate Investment Trusts.

The Uplands Manor acquisition, which helped us surpass 1,000 units in Calgary, further strengthens our presence in the market.

Mini Mall Storage Properties experienced impressive growth and surpassed $300 million in AUM in the first half of this year.

Our Agricultural Land Trust added 2,914 acres to its growing portfolio, bringing the fund to over 48,000 acres under management.

Avenue Living’s investment strategy and platform is shining bright at the halfway point in 2021.

“I’m very proud of our year to date. We’re two quarters in and we have grown exponentially,” says Jason Jogia, Chief Investment Officer, Avenue Living. “Our growth enables us to continue to invest in our platform and our assets.

“We are seeing an influx of acquisition opportunities across all of our mandates,” he adds.

The industry is experiencing what we call “the changing of the guard” — many smaller owner-operators are reaching retirement age and would consider passing their properties on to their children, however those children are not always inclined to operate a residential property. This generational wealth transfer plays into the future of our organization.

“Avenue Living is taking advantage of this unique moment in time. We believe there is opportunity to consolidate the unconsolidated,” says Jason.

With passive landlords not keeping up with the demands of today’s residents through lack of capital and operational investment, we are seeing significant opportunities arise. Assets such as real estate and storage properties continue to offer attractive alternative investments. Our investment strategy is the way it is because we are an owner-operator.

“We’ve really honed our operating platforms to service our customers and have created sustainability in how we work every day. Residents today require more from landlords than just a roof over their heads. Our investments in technology, real estate and our people have sustainably differentiated us in the market. The results show in the success of our operational and financial KPIs which we monitor continuously. We are rooted in our disciplined approach, financial performance, and proper KPIs to assure success. We will continue to invest in real estate, capex, technology, and our people — training and making them better — while creating better processes and becoming more efficient.

That’s the goal for the balance of the year,” Jason says.

Our four pillars are: investment in buying assets, investment in capex at the asset level, investment in operations to build a better operating platform, and investment in technology. Leaning on these will help ensure continued success as we navigate the latter half of the year.

Avenue Living has spent the better part of 16 years building our vertically integrated platform to allow our funds to grow at scale. With robust asset management and active property management, which includes incorporating market research models, each decision and investment is meticulously calculated.

“Our growth speaks to the resiliency, tenacity, and skill of our people. We’ve tested our system, and COVID-19 tested us in terms of our operating platform, technology and infrastructure, and the capacity of our people. We realized we were able to grow astronomically, even in unprecedented times.”

“Buying roughly $400 million in real estate between storage and multi-family acquisitions in Q2 really confirmed our ability to execute major transactions without missing a beat. Over the course of the quarter, we saw value appreciation in our assets through better performance and market fundamentals,” Jason says, “Every cylinder is firing as it should.”

There is much to look forward to for Avenue Living as we navigate the third and fourth quarters of 2021 with an eye to our long-term future and outlook.


This commentary and the information contained herein are for educational and informational purposes only and do not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities or related financial instruments. This article may contain forward-looking statements. Readers should refer to information contained on our website at www.alamstg.wpenginepowered.com for additional information regarding forward-looking statements and certain risks associated with them.