The European Association for Investors in Non-Listed Real Estate Vehicles (INREV) announced on Monday that it has launched new indices measuring the annual and quarterly performance of institutional vehicles (Spezialfonds), retail vehicles (Publikumsfonds) and other fund types domiciled in Germany.
Inrev has the backing of the German Investment Funds Association (BVI), which has contributed its data and market insight to the initiative.
'We are thrilled to be breaking new ground in terms of the depth of our industry data by introducing the first Inrev index that allows vehicle performance to be broken down both by domicile and legal structure. This has only been possible because of the appetite of our members for greater market transparency, so we are pleased to further this important cause and will continue to do so,' said Matthias Thomas, CEO of Inrev.
The recently-published Inrev German Vehicles Index 2016 includes historical BVI data on German-based non-listed real estate vehicles dating back to 2001. Since then the number of vehicles has grown from 25 to 177 as of the end of 2015, with their total net asset value (NAV) more than tripling over that period, from €30.9 bn to €97.8 bn.
Institutional funds outperformers
German-based vehicles have delivered positive total returns in all but one year from 2001 to 2015. The exception was the trough of -0.3% in 2010, largely due to poor returns driven by the liquidation of some retail funds. Overall returns have since rebounded, reaching 2.7% by the end of 2015.
Spezialfonds, which are only open to institutional investors, significantly outperformed Publikumsfonds over that period, with average annual returns of 3.8% compared with 2.1%. Looking just at 2015 performance, it is clear the current momentum is with Spezialfonds, which returned 5.1% compared to the 2% achieved by Publikumsfonds.
The 2015 results also point to the strength of Germany’s domestic market, Inrev noted. Vehicles that invest only in Germany registered an overall return of 5.7%, outperforming those with either a global (4.9%) or a European (1.7%) strategy. Logistics (4.5%) and residential (4.6%) were the best-performing sectors.
