Institutional investors such as pension plans and state public retirements systems were beginning to invest in real estate.

[1] By the 1980s, Heitman started forming commingled funds where capital was pooled from institutional investors to purchase real estate properties.

[1][4] During the 1980s, Heitman received large fees from buying and managing commercial real estate for pension funds and other institutional investors.

However the US Real Estate Crash of the 1980 caused many of the investments to produce losses..[5] In 1993 Heitman sold itself to United Asset Management (UAM) and became a subsidiary of it.

Heitman chairman Norman Perlmutter in an emotionally charged manner criticized the request stating Orange County wasn't a fund investor so it had no right to ask.

On May 15, in a letter to investors, Heitman stated it would abandon the conversion attempt resulting in 18 funds being required to be liquidated as originally planned.

In June 2020, Jenner filed a counterclaim stating Heitman actually owed it $840,000 in credits as it was unable to use its Chicago office at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.