There was a time when private money sources were focused intently on developers with projects in the "24/7" cities like New York, Chicago, Boston or San Francisco. Now Atlanta is muscling into that elite group and luring top-tier companies, hoping to attract or deploy private wealth in commercial real estate.
"Companies are attracted to Atlanta because it's a very business-friendly and talent-rich environment, be it tech talent, financial talent, highly educated talent or healthcare talent and that's been a boon for the city," Joshua M. Kamin, managing partner of the Atlanta office of the global law firm King & Spalding, who specializes in private equity transactions in the real estate space, tells GlobeSt.com.
It's a talent pool continually refreshed by newcomers as well as graduates of the highly ranked Georgia Institute of Technology and other leading universities, including four of the nation's best-regarded historically black colleges and universities.
And investors in real estate are taking note and taking action. "Strategic buyers are attracted to Atlanta's unique synergy between legacy enterprise giants and a burgeoning startup culture," according to TruSight Company's analysis of private equity and M&A activity in Atlanta.
Sapling Financial Consultants counted 59 private equity firms and 38 investment banks in the metro area. It said Georgia's private equity penetration rate in August 2025 was 2.83%, ranking ninth, below the national rate of 3.49%, with 1,885 private equity-backed companies, ranging from small family offices to large institutional investors.
Kamin's clients have included developers like Jamestown and Carter and capital sources like MetLife and Cerberus. He has been involved on one side or the other in some of Atlanta's most noteworthy transactions. They include $498.7 million in financing for Norfolk Southern's headquarters and the acquisition of land to develop facilities for Atlanta's National Women's Soccer League team, owned by philanthropist Arthur M. Blank, along with a commitment to invest at least $60 million in the property.
Private equity deals cover a broad range of transactions, including joint ventures between investors and developers, recapitalizations, restructurings, acquisitions, dispositions and borrower-side financing for domestic and non-US clients. They also cover partnerships that may involve some mix of debt and equity.
Kamin said what he calls "programmatic transactions," including joint ventures, are becoming more common. To facilitate deals, private equity may seek out a developer/sponsor with multiple deals in the pipeline. They may form a partnership to do several deals together with the sponsor as the developer and the private equity investor, providing a ready source of funding.
"They just run that play and do it on a repeat basis, which from the private equity point of view helps them make sure they're investing the capital they have raised into viable assets with strong partners," Kamin said.
"It doesn't help capital to raise a lot of money and not deploy. Over the past few years, the question was whether they could actually deploy those funds in a meaningful way because the opportunities weren't there due to interest rates or other factors. We're starting to see that change a little now."
"Interest rates are still challenging because they still are higher than they were several years ago when many investments were made."
Kamin's sense is that interest rates won't be returning to 2021 or Pre-Covid levels, which is factored into decision-making.
He sees an opportunity for private equity in construction and investment in Class A office space, noting strong demand for state-of-the-art new office space but limited supply. "There's a general feeling that you might see some new Class A construction start shortly," Kamin commented.
Recent reports have shown that private equity represents a greater share of CRE financing than traditional sources. Kamin said that's because more private dollars had been raised for CRE through private capital funds, rather than banks investing in equity or debt.
"It's not as if the institutional mindset of the investment is really that different from what it was before. It's just that there's a much greater participation of capital funds raising money and investing institutional capital differently than it would be in the past where the sources were traditional banks or financial institutions," he commented.
More players are in the marketplace, of different sizes, with different needs and investor bases, according to Kamin.
"It comes down to the geography and the fundamentals of the markets that you're in, and that's why Atlanta, which has some great market fundamentals, makes an attractive place to invest in real estate," he emphasized.
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