News – Page 1068
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Investors to decide gearing on L&G’s property income
UK – European institutional investors that have committed to Legal & General Property’s (LGP) new UK core fund have been given a choice over the level of gearing they will be exposed to.
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Rothschild Realty sees fresh prospects for US housing
UNITED STATES - Rothschild Realty Managers has made a $100m (€74.9m) equity investment with Summit Housing Partners based in Montgomery, Alabama, on the back of renewed confidence in the housing market.
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CalPERS wins right to vote on REIT board
UNITED STATES – California Public Employees Retirement Systems (CalPERS) has won support from fellow shareholders to introduce annual board elections at a specialist hotel real estate investment trust (REIT).
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Chicago Policemen eye non-core opportunities
UNITED STATES – The Policemen’s Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago has issued a Request for Proposal for non-core real estate managers.
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Santa Barbara County opens separate account search
UNITED STATES - Santa Barbara County Employees Retirement System has approved a Request for Information to hire a discretionary separate account real estate manager.
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Ireland’s NAMA takes on property-backed 'bad bank' loans
IRELAND – The Irish government has confirmed its National Asset Management Agency (NAMA), or so-called ‘bad bank’, has started to take €16bn worth of troubled real estate loans on to its books.
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Royal Mail Pension ends 27-year run for real estate manager
UK – LaSalle Investment Management is to take over the management of the Royal Mail Pension Plan’s (RMPP) £1.6bn (€1.8bn) UK real estate portfolio, which has been run by Hermes since 1995 and under its previous incarnation PosTel since 1983.
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Illinois State to boost real estate holdings by $300m
UNITED STATES - Illinois State Board of Investment has approved plans to invest $300m (€223.1m) in real estate in 2010.
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Pension funds maintain German real estate security
GERMANY – Total returns for German real estate declined for the second consecutive year, but pension funds in the country have continued to focus heavily on their domestic market because it “feels safer”, according to a leading pension fund manager.
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Ediston sees fresh activity after market downturn
UK – The Ediston Opportunity Fund, which raised capital from pension funds in 2007, has made a number of investments following more than two years of inactivity and is consulting investors on raising more capital.
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Norwegian pension fund snaps up new office
NORWAY – Akershus Fylkeskommunale Pensjonskasse (AFKP), a local authority pension fund for the employees of the municipality adjacent to the north and west of Oslo, has acquired a newly-developed office building in Drammen.
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Experts warn property derivative market could stagnate
GLOBAL – The head of property derivatives at Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) - the UK bank which executed Prupim’s £100m (€111m) total return swap deal last year - has warned the nascent sector will not survive unless more real estate investors become more engaged.
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German investors return to real estate
GERMANY – The percentage of German institutions investing in real estate has increased four-fold over the last year and the interest in infrastructure has also gone up, a survey by IPE Institutional Investment has found.
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CalPERS to invest $1.3bn in infrastructure in 2010
UNITED STATES - California Public Employees Retirement System wants to invest as much as $1.3bn (€961.5bn) in infrastructure during 2010. The initial focus will be investments in the United States and Europe. The pension fund is planning to invest $400m in a direct investment strategy. Most other pension funds in the US invest in infrastructure through either commingled funds or separate accounts. According to CalPERS officials, the benefits of direct investment is greater control and more focused capital deployments, the avoidance of manager fees and progress towards its goal of being a leading infrastructure investor. The remaining $900m allocated to the sector for this year would be done though commingled funds on a global basis. CalPERS have established a benchmark return for infrastructure of CPI plus 4%. According to CalPERS officials, the rationale for infrastructure is mainly diversification using long-term income-based investments that aren’t correlated strongly with global equity, the investor’s largest asset class. CalPERS has made commitments to infrastructure totaling $1.1bn. Some $400m was committed to funds transferred from the pension fund’s investments in real estate and private equity. This was moved into the inflation-linked asset class, which includes infrastructure. A further $700m has been committed to commingled funds. One of these was a $200m allocation to the CIM Infrastructure Fund. By August of 2009, less than 10% of that amount had been drawn down. CalPERS has made allocations in three other commingled funds. These were $100m each to Carlyle Infrastructure Partner and Alinda Infrastructure Fund I and $300m to Alinda Infrastructure Fund II. The pension fund’s target allocation for infrastructure is 1.5% of total plan assets within a range of 0.5% to 3.
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Pennsylvania Public School increases allocation to real estate
UNITED STATES - Pennsylvania Public School Employees’ Retirement System has decided to increase its targeted allocation for real estate from 8% to 10.5%. Most of the increase will be funded by the elimination of the pension fund’s 1.5% allocation to public REITs. Pennsylvania Public School ...
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UK REITs’ cash position strengthened
UK – Real estate investment trusts in the UK will be able to issue stock dividends in lieu of cash dividends if the current government remains in power after the next general election. UK chancellor Alistair Darling made the announcement in his pre-election Budget on Wednesday following lobbying pressure from ...
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BRIC-built recovery expected - JLL
GLOBAL – The BRIC countries will lead the global real estate market recovery as their economic expansion boosts occupier demand across all sectors and cross-border investment returns, according to Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL).
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Value emerging in industrials - Hansteen
UK – European industrial real estate investment trust (REIT) Hansteen has purchased an industrial estate and is in due diligence on three others for its new UK fund backed by institutional investors.
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Investors seek Nordic expansion
GERMANY/NORDICS – Institutional investors in Germany have asked Schroders to increase the size of their fully invested Nordic fund and given permission to the fund manager to raise additional equity from new investors.
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CalPERS to invest $1.3bn in infrastructure in 2010
UNITED STATES - California Public Employees Retirement System wants to invest as much as $1.3bn (€961.5bn) in infrastructure during 2010.
