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Solutions · Owners & InvestorsÉdition 2026FR · EN

Nyon · Paris

Solutions/Owners · Investors/Trusted third party owner-side

Solutions forOwners& Investors.

For institutional owners and investors, real estate funds, family offices, tertiary real estate funds, institutional developers, public and para-public owners, the envelope is the piece of the asset where the next wave of value creation and value destruction will concentrate. Energy and carbon regulations will redefine the residual value of the European tertiary stock before 2030. Acquisitions and new builds carry a facade package that concentrates technical complexity and financial risk.

Shili & Partners operates as facade consultant for developers and investors, to secure the asset, the budget, and forthcoming regulatory compliance. Our dual pole, Envelope Engineering on the project, Business Engineering on the industrial dynamics, lets us read a file simultaneously on technical, financial and strategic axes.

Facade consultant for institutional owners and investors, Owner's Engineer envelope mandate — 01 / 06Trusted third-party owner-side, direct facade engineering or Owner's Engineer envelope mandate.
Atelier Shili & Partners

04uncertainties

regulatory · DD · value · arbitration

−40%

décret tertiaire 2030

88%

Swiss investors expect retrofit (EY 2026)

00affil.

manufacturer · system supplier · contractor

§ TLDR · 01Regulatory · stranded asset.

§ TLDR · 02DD envelope · hidden CAPEX.

§ TLDR · 03Value · asset uplift.

§ TLDR · 04Arbitration · neutral third party.

01· Plate — four owner challenges

Your challenges.

Four recurring issues frame most of our conversations with institutional owners, investors and family offices when the envelope enters the discussion. They cannot be untangled, a sound decision treats them simultaneously.

01Regulatory
shock

Energy and carbon regulatory shock.

Regulatory trajectories converge across jurisdictions. The concrete owner-side risk : stranded asset before holding horizon.

Regulatory trajectories converge across jurisdictions: Swiss MoPEC 2025, French décret tertiaire DEET with its −40/−50/−60 % staged reductions, EU EPBD recast, UK MEES ratchets. The envelope accounts for 70-80 % of a building's thermal losses and a substantial share of its embodied carbon. For any institutional portfolio, the question is no longer whether a retrofit wave will come, but which assets are at stranded-asset risk if the trajectory is not anticipated, and how the capex should be sequenced to align with SFDR or EU Taxonomy positioning.

A measured figure: 88 % of Swiss institutional investors expect the new energy and climate regulations to trigger substantial retrofit and restructuring requirements on the existing stock (EY Swiss Real Estate Investment Market Trend Barometer 2026, March 2026).

Source
EY Swiss RE Barometer 2026Envelope share
70-80 % thermal losses

MoPEC 2025DEETEU EPBDMEES

02Envelope due
diligence

Envelope due diligence, missing or shallow.

Pre-acquisition technical audits typically cover structure, asbestos, HVAC, electrical. The envelope is rarely inspected with the depth required to defend an acquisition price.

Pre-acquisition technical audits typically cover structure, asbestos, HVAC and electrical. The envelope itself, air tightness, thermal bridges actually built, sealant state, structural fastenings of unitised curtain walls, glass load history, is rarely inspected with the depth required to defend an acquisition price. Post-acquisition discovery on the envelope is a recurring source of unplanned capex that erodes the underwriting thesis.

Frame
Pre-acquisition · pre-investmentRisk
Unplanned CAPEX, underwriting erosion

Air tightnessThermal bridgesSealantsFastenings

03Value creation
vs CAPEX

Value creation vs retrofit cost.

A deep envelope retrofit is usually framed as a cost line. It is also a driver of asset repositioning : rent premium, vacancy reduction, label upgrade.

A deep envelope retrofit is usually framed as a cost line. It is also, when structured properly, a driver of asset repositioning: rent premium, vacancy reduction, label upgrade, OPEX compression, ESG reporting alignment. Few owner-side teams have the mixed engineering-financial skill set to document the value-creation case per asset and to sequence the capex accordingly over the holding period.

Holding horizon
7 to 15 years typicalOutput
Value-creation case per asset

Rent premiumVacancyOPEXLabel uplift

04Contradictory
arbitration

Contradictory technical arbitration.

Without a trusted third party owner-side, the final decision reflects the influence balance of the stakeholders rather than the technical substance.

On complex envelope issues, the architect, the general contractor, the facade specialist and the inspection body often reach contradictory technical conclusions. Without a trusted third party on the owner side, the final decision reflects the influence balance of the stakeholders rather than the technical substance. We step in to arbitrate, documented, technology-neutral, with the owner's interest as the sole bearing.

Stance
No affiliation · No retro-commissionOutput
Note defensible at investment committee

Trusted third partyDocumentedTech-neutral

02· Plate — what we bring

What we bring.

Our value to an institutional owner or investor is organised around five mappings between the issues listed above and the services of our engineering poles.

01 / 05Regulatory shock

Regulatory shock, anticipation and compliance roadmap.

A systemic diagnostic combined with a carbon strategy translates the owner's portfolio into an asset-by-asset compliance trajectory.

Delivered with costed intervention scenarios, sequencing options, and alignment with SFDR / EU Taxonomy / CSRD reporting frames.

SFDREU TaxonomyCSRD

See systemic diagnostic

02 / 05Pre-acquisition DD

Envelope due diligence, pre-acquisition technical audit.

An independent technical audit of the envelope on a target asset, delivered within the underwriting timeline.

Qualified reading of air tightness, thermal bridges, structural fastenings, sealant state, fire performance, accessibility compliance. The report supports price negotiation and defines the post-closing capex envelope.

Air tightnessThermalFastenings

See systemic diagnostic

03 / 05Owner's Engineer

Brand risk on new builds, Owner's Engineer mandate.

On a new build, a facade consultant on the owner side carries the independent technical reading through design, tender, fabrication, installation and handover.

It protects the owner's brand from the shortfalls that marketing on plan cannot absorb.

Owner's Eng.DesignHandover

See Owner's Engineer

04 / 05Business case per asset

Value creation vs retrofit cost, business case per asset.

Project economics engineering delivers a shadow pricing of the retrofit, cross-referenced with post-retrofit value uplift, OPEX compression, vacancy reduction and label premium.

A documented business case that institutional investment committees can underwrite.

Shadow pricingOPEXUnderwriting

See project economics

05 / 05Trusted third party

Contradictory arbitration, trusted third party.

Our practice is technology-neutral and without affiliation to a contractor or system supplier.

Technical arbitration is delivered in written form, with assumptions, alternatives and reasoning exposed, defensible before the investment committee and, if needed, before an arbitration court.

Tech-neutralDefensibleWritten form

See technological neutrality

03· Plate — preferred engagement modes

Preferred engagement modes.

Three forms of contracting cover the majority of our relationships with institutional owners and investors. Each is framed at kick-off, scope, deliverable, cadence, and can evolve toward another as the project progresses.

§ Mode 01 · multi-year

Owner's Engineer Envelope

The extended form of our relationship on a complex new build or deep retrofit.

Multi-year mandate from design to handover
Independent technical reading owner-side
Orchestrate interfaces architect / GC / mandating designer
Owner as sole principal at each decision gate

§ Mode 02 · scoped

Systemic diagnostic

The short and scoped form, factual and auditable.

Pre-acquisition · pre-retrofit · pre-investment
Litigation pre-instruction
Four to eight weeks framed at kick-off
Often the entry point to a longer relationship

§ Mode 03 · direct contract

Direct Lead Envelope

The intermediate form, owner-piloted envelope engineering.

Owner-piloted, no mandating designer in between
Concept · DFMA · procurement · supervision
Suited to in-house PM capacity
Preference for unbundled contracting

04· Plate — points of attention

Points of attention.

Four realities shape the way we engage institutional owners, compared to other client profiles.

01 / 04Decision cycles

Decision cycles are long.

Six to eighteen months between first conversation and signed mandate is typical.

We operate with patience and with proofs, a framed pilot diagnostic, a second-opinion on a contentious technical point, a measured reading on a single asset, rather than with commercial acceleration.

6-18 monthsPatienceProofs

02 / 04Multi-stakeholder governance

Governance involves multiple stakeholders.

Real estate director, technical director, investment committee, ESG officer, asset management, each must align.

Our deliverables are documented, auditable and defensible across this spectrum, not a slide deck.

RE directorESGIC

03 / 04Reporting requirements

Reporting requirements are formalised.

ESG frames (SFDR, EU Taxonomy, CSRD), internal investment memos, board papers, external assurance audits, all shape the format of what we deliver.

We produce evidence that stands up to those frames, not narrative alone.

SFDRTaxonomyCSRD

04 / 04Confidentiality

Confidentiality is absolute for UHNWI and family offices.

When we engage on a patrimonial project, the mission is compartmented, NDA is systematic.

No public reference is made without explicit written consent.

NDA systematicCompartmentedNo public ref

05· Plate — what sets us apart

What sets us apart.

Three elements distinguish our practice from a generalist engineering consultancy and from a standard technical auditor. None is negotiable.

01 / 03Dual cultural anchoring

A dual cultural anchoring.

Seventeen years in the envelope industry, including several years in pre-construction with a Tier-1 international contractor in glass envelope works.

This anchoring gives the industrial reality check that most consultancies lack, what European supply chains actually fabricate, at what cost, and where the real defects appear on site. Combined with a computational design practice native to parametric modelling and file-to-factory workflows.

17 yearsTier-1 glassDFMAReality check

02 / 03Trusted third party

A trusted third-party posture.

No affiliation with a contractor, a system supplier or a fabricator. No commercial interest in a proprietary solution.

Our economic model is fee-for-service on the owner side, our interest is aligned with the owner's, by construction.

No affiliationFee-for-serviceBy construction

See trusted third party

03 / 03Long-form engagement

A long-form engagement capacity.

A deep envelope retrofit or a new build on a signature asset is rarely a six-month exercise.

We operate with the mastery of duration, not the urgency register of consulting, because the envelope itself operates on a decade horizon and its decisions compound over that horizon.

Decade horizonMastery of duration

06· Plate — articulation with other services

Articulation with other services.

An engagement with an institutional owner typically touches several of our services beyond the three engagement modes described above.

§ 01Carbon strategy.

Carbon strategy. When the regulatory trajectory is the driving concern, the carbon reading of the portfolio comes before the technical audit. SIA 2040, RE2020, EU Taxonomy alignments are integrated at this stage.

§ 02Project economics.

Project economics. The business case per asset, retrofit cost vs value uplift, is a project economics deliverable, not a generic consulting document.

§ 03Envelope commissioning (BECx).

Envelope commissioning (BECx). On a new build, the owner benefits from an independent envelope commissioning process from design through handover, per NIBS Guideline 3.

§ 04Facade failure forensic.

Facade failure forensic. When an existing asset is affected by recurring envelope defects, the forensic expertise instructs the litigation file and protects the recovery of damages.

§ 05Claim management & arbitration.

Claim management & arbitration. On a project in contractual difficulty, the claim management work protects the owner's position.

Shili & PartnersA Shili Build Ventures company