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Tishman Speyer
Tishman Speyer was founded in 1978 by Jerry Speyer and the late Robert Tishman, merging two legacy New York real-estate dynasties into a single platform.
Tishman Speyer
Tishman Speyer was founded in 1978 by Jerry Speyer and the late Robert Tishman, merging two legacy New York real-estate dynasties into a single platform. Jerry's son Rob took over as CEO in 2008 and has since repositioned the firm around urban mixed-use campuses that combine office, residential, and retail within single ownership stakes. The founding, rooted in the Tishman family's construction and ownership track record dating to 1898, produced a development firm with a rare continuous history across more than a century of New York commercial property cycles. The firm pursues a concentrated strategy in gateway cities, owning and operating properties in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, London, Berlin, Paris, São Paulo, Shanghai, and Tokyo. Its 2023 partnership with Raffles Family Office to offer direct co-investments in property development illustrates its approach to fundraising outside institutional blind-pool funds. Signature holdings include Rockefeller Center and The Spiral in New York, where the firm deploys long-term capital for ground-up development and repositioning of aging Class A assets. In 2021, Tishman Speyer launched a dedicated venture arm that has since invested in companies such as Latch and VTS, bridging the gap between physical real-estate operations and enterprise technology. Tishman Speyer has raised its most recent flagship opportunistic fund, Tishman Speyer Real Estate Venture X, which closed at $2.5 billion in commitments in 2022 (per PERE, 2022). Its total portfolio encompasses more than 90 million square feet of development and operating property globally, assembled through a mix of proprietary partnerships and single-asset vehicles. Beyond real estate, the firm operates ZO, a flexible-workspace brand integrated into its own buildings, and Tishman Speyer Properties, its core sponsorship and management entity, extending operational control across its portfolio. The firm's structural edge lies in its history as a vertically integrated owner-operator that rarely sells trophy assets. Rather than relying on fee income from third-party management, Tishman Speyer generates returns through long-duration ownership and capital recycling within its own ecosystem. The intergenerational leadership transfer from Jerry to Rob Speyer occurred without a liquidity event or outside capital infusion, preserving a family-controlled governance structure uncommon among institutional managers of comparable scale.
General information
Firm type
Generalist
Year founded
1978
AUM
Undisclosed
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
New York
Corporate office
New York, NY, United States
Additional offices
San Francisco, CA · Chicago, IL · Washington, DC · Los Angeles, CA · Boston, MA · London, United Kingdom · Berlin, Germany · Frankfurt, Germany · Paris, France · São Paulo, Brazil · Shanghai, China · Suzhou, China · Gurugram, India · Tokyo, Japan
Principals
Rob Speyer
President & Chief Executive Officer
Jerry Speyer
Chairman
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
Who runs investment decisions at Tishman Speyer?
Rob Speyer, President and CEO, leads investment and strategic direction, with Jerry Speyer serving as Chairman. The firm's investment committee reviews all major acquisitions, development starts, and dispositions, drawing on a senior leadership team that includes the global heads of development, acquisitions, and asset management.
How does Tishman Speyer source proprietary deal flow?
Because the firm acts as both developer and operator, sourcing often originates from its own portfolio-long urban rezoning, assembling adjacent parcels, or repositioning distressed assets within submarkets it already dominates. Its multigenerational relationships with municipalities, anchor tenants, and local landowners in cities like New York and São Paulo generate off-market opportunities before institutional bidding processes begin.
Is Tishman Speyer structured as a family office or an institutional asset manager?
Tishman Speyer operates as a private institutional asset manager with family-controlled governance. While the Speyer family retains control through a private ownership structure, the firm raises discretionary commingled funds and separate accounts from sovereign wealth funds, public pensions, and corporate investors globally.
Does Tishman Speyer participate in fund commitments or only direct deals?
The firm manages discretionary closed-end opportunistic funds, the latest of which, Tishman Speyer Real Estate Venture X, closed at $2.5 billion in 2022 (per PERE, 2022). These funds sit alongside single-asset joint ventures and separately managed accounts, with the firm investing meaningful co-investment capital alongside its LPs in every vehicle.
Which sectors does Tishman Speyer explicitly avoid?
Tishman Speyer avoids secondary and tertiary markets, focusing capital exclusively on gateway global cities with deep liquid real estate markets. Within those cities, it concentrates on large-scale mixed-use development and Class A office, residential, and retail, generally avoiding single-tenant net-lease assets, industrial logistics, and suburban multifamily.
How is Tishman Speyer Ventures related to the core real estate business?
Tishman Speyer Ventures was launched in 2021 as a strategic venture arm investing in real estate technology companies that can be deployed across the firm's portfolio. The unit, led by a dedicated team, has invested in companies like Latch, VTS, and HqO, pursuing both financial returns and operational advantages for the parent company's 90-million-square-foot portfolio.
What is Tishman Speyer's known posture on co-investments alongside external GPs?
Tishman Speyer acts as the GP and operating partner in nearly all its deals, maintaining control over development, leasing, and capital-stack decisions. It invites co-investment from strategic capital partners, including family offices like Raffles Family Office (per Bloomberg, 2023), but rarely serves as a passive LP in funds managed by external GPs.
Profile maintained by Altss using OSINT (open-source intelligence), regulatory filings, licensed data partners, and verified direct submissions. Read the methodology. Last updated: . Continuous refresh with full update cycles at least every 30 days.
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