Realterm: tenant due diligence and Inbound KYC across a $14 billion global platform

Background

Realterm is a global investor in transportation logistics real estate, with over $14 billion in assets under management. Headquartered in the United States, the firm invests in high flow-through logistics facilities that underpin critical transport infrastructure, including airports, seaports, rail networks, and trucking corridors.

Operating across North America, Europe, and Australia, Realterm manages a portfolio of operating assets with active tenant populations, alongside a steady cadence of acquisitions and disposals. The legal and compliance function must balance commercial execution with regulatory control across multiple jurisdictions and evolving expectations around AML and counterparty risk management.

The challenge

For assets under acquisition, Realterm is often required to assess existing tenants where no contractual relationship yet exists. In these scenarios, there is no obligation on tenants to provide documentation, yet regulators increasingly expect risk to be considered proactively and documented appropriately.

Historically, elements of tenant screening and KYC were managed through a combination of internal oversight and external operational support. As regulatory expectations and portfolio complexity increased, this model placed a heightened burden on internal teams, alongside their broader strategic and transactional responsibilities across jurisdictions, tenant types, and transaction contexts. 

In parallel, Inbound KYC requests from counterparties were handled regionally. As the platform expanded globally, Realterm sought to match that growth in requests with a more formalised and unified framework that would continue to support both governance and execution.

Many firms rely on traditional point-in-time reviews, but these risk missing developments that occur between transaction milestones or annual cycles. For a portfolio generating ongoing rental income across multiple jurisdictions, visibility over tenant developments was an important component of responsible oversight for Realterm to maintain.

The solution

Realterm chose to expand its relationship with Avantia, building on their existing Transaction AML/KYC partnership to establish a broader, integrated framework covering tenant screening, ongoing monitoring, and Inbound KYC coordination.

Avantia now provides:

• Transaction AML/KYC for acquisitions and disposals, calibrated to transaction structure, jurisdiction, and counterparty profile

• Tenant screening based on publicly available information where documentary access is not available

• Ongoing tenant monitoring delivered monthly, with identification of material developments as they arise

• Centralised Inbound KYC management across Europe, North America, and Australia, supported by structured reporting and coordinated action lists

As a key compliance partner, Avantia can leverage its global market knowledge to support Realterm with risk-calibrated diligence: assessing when publicly available information is sufficient, when enhanced review is appropriate, and when issues merit escalation or privileged legal analysis.

By partnering with Avantia, Realterm are also able to access regional specialists. In certain European transactions, including France, counterparties have been reluctant to provide documentation in line with policy expectations. In these cases, Avantia has attended discussions, issued jurisdiction-specific and translated requests, and advised Realterm on nuanced options and trade-offs.

By building an ongoing monitoring framework, Avantia has also added an additional layer of oversight. In one Australian matter, developments connected to a tenant were identified through monitoring, enabling Realterm to obtain preliminary privileged advice and consider its position in an informed and measured manner.