News – Page 985
-
News
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.
-
News
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.
-
News
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.
-
News
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 ...
-
News
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 ...
-
News
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).
-
News
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.
-
News
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.
-
News
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.
-
News
APG and Corio to invest €1.3bn in European retail
EUROPE – Pension fund asset manager APG has agreed to help listed real estate company Corio raise enough capital to acquire more than €1.3bn worth of retail assets in Europe.
-
News
Aviva's AIPL investments near €290m
UK – Aviva Investors has acquired more than £260m (€289m) of UK real estate over the last six months for its AIPL vehicle, a low-risk real estate fund for institutional corporate and local authority pension schemes.
-
News
Investor strategy prompts IVG Spezialfonds rethink
GERMANY – IVG Immobilien, Germany's largest provider of institutional open-ended real estate funds, is to dissolve three of its Spezialfonds, which together hold approximately €2bn in real estate assets.
-
News
German open-ended funds continue growth despite downturn
GERMANY - Germany’s open-ended real estate funds returned strong growth in 2009 and well into 2010, a new survey revealed today.
-
News
West Midlands bags UK shopping centre
UK – Property company and fund manager Delancey has sold a UK shopping centre for more than £70m (€78m) to the West Midlands Pension Fund.
-
News
Morgan Stanley launches secondaries fund
GLOBAL – Morgan Stanley has launched the first real estate fund of funds vehicle dedicated specifically to acquiring secondary interests in existing funds.
-
News
Strathclyde to increase focus on RI in property review
UK – Strathclyde Pension Fund's current review of its property portfolio will include 'further consideration' of the application of its responsible investment (RI) strategy.
-
News
INREV predicts UK institutional investors to tap real estate growth
UK – The total volume of capital invested in real estate by UK institutional investors is set to grow by 20% over the next three years as pension funds increase their allocations to the asset class and move out of underweight positions, according to new a survey.
-
News
Germany and UK at greatest risk from 'problem' loans
EUROPE – Germany and the UK are more exposed to more than the €200bn pool of real estate loans identified by CB Richard Ellis as “problematic” than any other markets in Europe.
-
News
Texas Teachers seeks growth in agriculture
UNITED STATES - Teacher Retirement System has made its first ever investment in agriculture with a $250m (€145.9m) commitment into the AG Real Value Fund, managed by Teay’s River Investments.
-
News
British Steel pension moves into music store
UK – The British Steel Pension Fund has acquired an HMV music store in Manchester from a private investor for £18.9m (€21.14m) and plans to make further acquisitions over the next 18 months.
