SWI
SWI Group

The alternative investment world has a new heavyweight contender. SWI Group has burst onto the scene, bringing together Icona Capital and Stoneweg into a unified $11 billion investment platform with impressive global reach. What started as a strategic partnership has transformed into an integrated powerhouse making moves across Europe, North America, and Asia.

It all began back in 2020, when the two firms first collaborated on a Madrid property deal. They acquired a sizeable 211,000 sqm former bottling plant that was later sold to Thor Equities and is currently being transformed into a $650 million data center. This early success demonstrated the immense potential of their combined expertise.

"We saw right away that mixing Icona's alternative investment approach with Stoneweg's real assets know-how created something special in the market," says Max-Hervé George, Chairman of SWI Group and founder of Icona Capital. "Every successful project we completed together made it clearer that formally joining forces would take things to the next level." This natural fit eventually led them to make it official with their merger and rebranding as SWI Group in 2025.

While the partnership was developing, both companies continued advancing their individual growth plans. Under Max-Hervé George's leadership, Icona Capital expanded beyond industrial properties into luxury hospitality, including acquiring an island in the Maldives for an ultra-luxury development. Meanwhile, Stoneweg, under Jaume Sabater (now Co-CEO of SWI Group), strengthened its portfolio across various real asset sectors.

The defining moment in SWI's story came when they jointly acquired Cromwell Property Group's European fund management platform for over 300 million dollars. The deal included a sizeable stake in Cromwell European REIT, adding just above $4 billion of real estate assets to their portfolio.

As of today, SWI runs two main business lines that leverage the strengths of its parent companies. "This strategic structure allows us to maintain our specialized expertise while giving clients access to a wider range of investment opportunities," explains Max-Hervé George. "The merger gives us the scale and diversity needed to attract larger institutional investors."

Currently, SWI has its sights set on the UK market, where they're planning significant investments in data centers, building on their Madrid success story. "We're actively looking at data center opportunities and have already identified some promising sites," George says. The group is also targeting logistics facilities and warehouses as retail continues its major shift toward e-commerce.

Boasting a team of 350+ professionals across 26 offices in 18 countries, SWI focuses on combining global perspective with local market knowledge, an approach Max-Hervé George has championed throughout his career.