A New Standard: RE Firm Finds Gaps Outside Mainstream
From Emerging Manager Monthly February 2026
Standard Real Estate Investments is distinguishing itself as a diversified middle market real estate investor by finding gaps that other investors are missing.
The Standard team brings together extensive experience garnered from their time at CBRE Investment Management, where CEO Robert Jue and President Jerome Nichols managed a real estate fund series that invested opportunistically throughout the U.S.
The duo “had an itch to be entrepreneurs” and felt it was time to strike out on their own, co-founding Standard in September 2020.
“We left [CBRE] with only the money that we had in our account and a plan to raise funds and manage capital on behalf of many of the same clients we’d partnered with at CBRE. The goal was to leverage our industry relationships to execute on very similar work to what we were doing at CBRE, but with a more intentional focus on individual investments and alignment with our clients. That was the genesis of the company and we have been building year over year since that point,” Jue said.
Standard currently focuses on multifamily and industrial real estate investments, with equity investments ranging from $10 million to $30 million as their “strike zone” in what are primarily all single asset transactions, according to Jue.
“Our team is made up of people that know how to operate real estate, manage fund investments and run a business; this results in capital and execution efficiencies for our investors,” he said. “Working with Standard is going direct to the source. For our clients, that means better bottom’s up insights and access, leading to better outcomes.”
The firm further differentiates itself in its investment approach, which is bolstered by Principal Shubhra Jha, formerly the Americas investment research team leader at CBRE.
Americas investment research team leader at CBRE. “She really helps guide us and navigate us through the markets and gives us an institutional approach, even though we’re as small as we are,” Jue said.
The 100% diverse Standard team is six members strong with three based in Los Angeles and three in Washington, D.C. and currently has $660 million in gross assets under management.
The Standard team is known for being experts at investing joint venture equity in real estate development projects, with a “particular formula in terms of how we do that” called its “controlled risk approach to investing in real estate development,” Jue said.
Standard launched an investment venture with GCM Grosvenor in 2023 targeting equity investments in approximately $150 million of industrial property developments across the U.S., which expanded in 2025 through adding up to $600 million in new investment capacity for industrial and multifamily transactions.
The New York State Common Retirement Fund made a $15 million commitment to Standard Real Estate Investments Industrial I through GCM’s Empire GCM RE Anchor Fund in 2023, as reported by EMM sister publication FIN Daily.
Standard also formed a strategic investment program with Belay Investment Group in 2021 and works with Artemis Real Estate Partners in their emerging manager program, according to Jue.
Throughout its successes and pursuit for new opportunities, Standard remains rooted in a philosophy that dates back to Standard Savings Bank – Jue’s grandfather’s bank that was founded in Los Angeles’ Chinatown in the 1980s, and the firm’s namesake.
“They really made a name for themselves making loans to Chinese immigrants that were settling in the San Gabriel Valley of Los Angeles that didn’t otherwise have access to conventional financing,” Jue said. “So, for example, a businessperson wants to start a business but doesn’t necessarily know how to fill out the forms for the Bank of America or Wells Fargo loan, but, because Standard Bank provided a community banker that was able to speak Chinese, they were able to get that loan.”
Jue emphasized that the spirit of the bank centered around having “a little bit of a different perspective” to see market opportunities that the mainstream doesn’t necessarily see, which is a similar approach that his firm is trying to take.
“Let’s make very fundamentally sound investments that are evidence-based, but let’s look for gaps in terms of where the rest of the market isn’t necessarily looking. We think that can generate some additional alpha for our clients,” he said.
Looking ahead to this year and beyond, Jue acknowledged that the firm is “sort of on the precipice” with their emerging manager programs and “we’re looking at graduating and going direct on our own right.”
But “job number one” remains to “deliver great investment performance for our clients on the money that they’ve committed to us and that we’ve invested,” he said.
“Most of our day is focused on that. The rest of our day is focused on finding other great investment opportunities to put client capital to work in,” he continued. “And we’re seeing that right now in multifamily and industrial. Our diversified strategy is a spear aimed at enabling us to thrive amid uncertainty. A lot of the multifamily supply concerns that have been dogging the market are starting to wane, yet the demand for housing continues to be really, really strong across the country. We’re bullish on that space and are continuing to lean in there.”
Meanwhile, on the industrial side, “industrial was hot, and then it was not. The underlying trends have become more positive again, with people needing more warehouse space and less retail space to do different kind of things in the new economy,” Jue said.
“We see an interesting cyclical opportunity right now in the space to both buy and build industrial, and we’re continuing to lean in there as well,” he added.