The European Association for Investors in Non-listed Real Estate vehicles (Inrev) has launched a funds of funds directory which it says will provide a comprehensive overview of the 'rapidly evolving sector of the non-listed property vehicles investment world' for the first time. Access to the online database is restricted to Inrev members.

The European Association for Investors in Non-listed Real Estate vehicles (Inrev) has launched a funds of funds directory which it says will provide a comprehensive overview of the 'rapidly evolving sector of the non-listed property vehicles investment world' for the first time. Access to the online database is restricted to Inrev members.

The directory comprises 36 funds of funds with an approximate total target equity of just under EUR 10.9 bn. Six of these funds did not give a target equity figure, so INREV estimated the total size of the database to be around EUR 12 bn. INREV said it also estimated that the database covers 80% of the market in Europe and the majority of the Asian funds of funds, but that the number in the US could be significantly higher.

Of the EUR 10.9 bn, around 68%, or EUR 7.4 bn is targeting Europe, 17%, or EUR 1.8 bn, is focused at Asia, while 4%, EUR 400 mln, is allocated to invest in US vehicles. The remainder is targeted at Australia or single-country funds.

'The majority of the funds of funds that we have now captured in the Inrev database are targeted at Europe as would be expected, but there is also robust growth in Asia. This shows that the Asian investment market is leapfrogging the historical evolution in Europe. Unlike in Europe, where the rise of the underlying non-listed real estate funds was followed by funds of funds, both forms of vehicles are developing in parallel in these emerging markets,' Inrev research director Andrea Carpenter commented.

'The funds of funds targeting Asia tend to be smaller, but the speed at which they are growing is impressive for such a young market,' she added.

Some 29 of the funds in the directory are accessible to institutional investors only, while seven are available to both institutional and retail investors. From the total of 36 funds of funds, 11 are currently closed to investors and 25 are still open. Closed-ended funds of funds make up 22 of the total and there are 14 open ended vehicles. On average, they have invested in 10 underlying funds, but the median target to invest in is 14.

The office property sector is the most popular investment area and accounts for 36% of the directory by number of funds, followed by retail at 30%, industrial/logistics at 18%, residential at 9% and other real estate sectors at 7%.

Inrev has 258 members, drawn from leading institutional investors, fund managers, promoters and advisors across Europe and beyond. Sixty of the members are investors with real estate assets under management of over EUR 100 bn.