DWS's $114bn real assets business extends across all asset classes including real estate, infrastructure, commodities, and liquid strategies. Its US real estate platform dates back more than four decades – which has helped it to leverage the recent interest for real assets by insurers.

The asset manager manages approximately $3bn for 50 North American insurers – mostly in real estate equity. It has helped small- to mid-market insurance companies, as well as large, to access this previously niche market via lower investment minimums.

Furthermore, and perhaps most important, DWS vehicle structures allowed for more favourable and accommodative accounting, regulatory and capital treatment.

Complementing its real estate equity exposure, DWS has recently added private commercial real estate debt capabilities to expand the real asset offerings. The investment manager particularly focused on providing access to segments in less- covered portions of the capital stack that could be able to potentially deliver a higher level of income in a risk-controlled fashion.

As opposed to being in the more crowded segments of the debt space DWS last year looked to differentiate and deliver insurers other parts of the capital stack that were more yield- rich, such as mezzanine loans, as well as flexible options that included a combination of private loans and public debt securities to obtain good yields with more favourable treatment, or higher-yielding agency and non-agency CMBS structures.

For its skill in handling the whole diverse range of insurer asset needs, DWS wins this years real asset manager award.