UBS Trumbull property fund redemption queue reaches 40% of GAV

More than $7bn (€6.61bn) of institutional capital was seeking to exit the UBS Trumbull Property Fund at the end of September, representing about 40% of the open-ended fund’s $17.8bn gross asset value (GAV).

A report by investment consultancy Callan for the Marin County Employees Retirement Association (MCERA) says the fund had a $7.2bn queue at the end of September, almost half its $14.5bn net asset value.

UBS did not respond to a request for comment.

The fund had a similarly sized redemption queue at the start of 2020, but its GAV was larger, at $22.7bn, meaning the queue represented over 30% of its GAV at the time.

UBS has so far paid out $1.85bn in redemptions this year, including a $200m payment in the third quarter, according to Callan. The fund had a target to pay $2.5bn of redemptions in 2022 at the beginning of the year.

Last month, IPE Real Assets reported that Kansas Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) had requested a full redemption of its $167m investment in the fund. The pension fund was seeking to rebalance its real estate porfolio by reducing its core exposure and had also a requested a full redemption of its $114.8m investment in the Jamestown Premiere Property Fund.

MCERA has received a partial $20m redemption request it issued in January 2020. As of October, it still had about $118m invested in UBS Trumbull and its report said “Callan is comfortable with UBS as they carry out the fund restructuring and sell off their non-strategic assets and would like to continue to monitor that progress”.

In 2020, UBS sought to carve out $5bn of “non-strategic” assets for sale. According to the Callan report, UBS had sold 65% and transferred 12% of the non-strategic asset pool by the end of September.

The non-strategic asset pool is expected to be 88% divested by the end of the year, with the final sales occurring in 2023.

According to the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries (NCREIF), US core open-ended property funds saw more capital inflows than outflows in the third quarter.

According to the NCREIF Fund Index – Open-end Diversified Core Equity, which tracks 26 funds with $356bn in GAV, net cash flows were positive at $767.6m between July and September, having turned negative in Q2, at -$873.9m.

For the 12 months ending 30 September 2022, total contributions were $25.06bn and distributions/redemptions were $23.82bn, leading to a net cash flow positive of $1.24bn.