Akman Bets on Vertical Integration to Unlock Institutional Capital

Alex Akman, chief operating officer of Shindico Realty, believes the future of alternative real estate belongs to operators that control an asset’s entire life cycle.

Shindico, a Winnipeg, Manitoba-based family office, invests its own capital with private equity discipline and partners with Canadian institutions. Akman oversees its acquisitions, development and day-to-day operations.

His most significant initiative was founding SNR Construction in 2023, Shindico’s in-house general contracting division. Like most developers, Shindico had relied on outside contractors. As construction inflation accelerated, that dependence created cost and schedule risks that were pushing many developers out of new projects.

Akman built SNR Construction from scratch, recruited construction expertise and integrated it with Shindico’s development, acquisition and property management operations. The firm can now underwrite, build, lease and hold apartments on a single platform. Controlling cost and schedule allowed Shindico to keep developing multifamily housing while higher costs sidelined competitors.

The same year, Akman guided the merger of Akman Management into Shindico. Founded in 1912, Akman Management was one of Winnipeg’s most established multifamily operators, with 17 residential projects. The deal followed a period when a key leader’s illness required Akman to take on a senior role at Akman Management while continuing his work at Shindico. The merger expanded Shindico’s multifamily portfolio and brought decades of high-rise expertise in-house, while preserving staff jobs at both firms.

Akman has driven more than $285 million in retail, industrial and multifamily acquisitions and delivered more than $150 million in industrial and multifamily development.

In 2025, Shindico completed the TransX portfolio acquisition, the largest in its history. The deal added 211 acres of industrial outdoor storage land and about 373,000 square feet of leasable industrial buildings. That year, Shindico also acquired 42.14 acres across three parcels in the Water Tower District, a transit-oriented mixed-use redevelopment in Winnipeg’s St. Boniface neighborhood.

In the River Heights neighborhood, the firm’s Taylor Claire and Taylor Lee buildings, with 248 units, are fully leased. A third building, Taylor Eddie, is under construction.

Shindico manages more than 8 million square feet and about $2.7 billion in assets. It owns 1,676 multifamily units in Manitoba, with 86 more under construction or scheduled to begin in 2026.

Akman also supported the firm’s national multifamily partnership with Main + Main, which has brought capital from institutions including First Capital Realty and Greystone Managed Investments into urban mixed-use residential projects.

The firm’s approach is to build only when units can be filled, finance conservatively through structures insured by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., and hold assets for the long term. In Akman’s view, vertical integration makes harder-to-execute asset classes, such as purpose-built rentals and industrial outdoor storage, investable at scale.

Akman is secretary of the board of the Building Owners and Managers Association of Manitoba and chairs its Young Professionals Committee. He also serves on the board of the Corydon Village BIZ. He led Shindico to BOMA BEST Gold certification and supports CJPAC, CISA and several pet rescue and prairie wildlife groups.