Europe's non-listed real estate funds are increasingly incorporating the guidelines set by the industry body INREV in their annual reporting, according to the findings of a recent study.
Europe's non-listed real estate funds are increasingly incorporating the guidelines set by the industry body INREV in their annual reporting, according to the findings of a recent study.
The Review of Reporting Best Practice conducted by INREV - the European Association for Investors in Non-listed Real Estate Vehicles - found that some 53% of the funds reviewed had adopted 50-75% of the association's reporting guidelines in their 2007 annual reports compared to 39% in 2006. About 20% adopted between 75-100% of the guidelines compared with just 14% in 2006.
Speaking at the INREV Chief Financial Officer / Chief Operating Officer Conference in Lisbon last week, Berend Scholten, director of professional standards at INREV commented: 'Although there is still a way to go to reach what would be considered as a high standard of transparency, we can see from analysing the results of the study that the overall adoption of INREV's reporting best practice recommendations among non-listed real estate funds is rising.'
The study, carried out by Deloitte on behalf of INREV, examined the 2007 annual reports from 40 funds in detail and compared these with the base sample of funds' annual reports from 2006, before the guidelines were published. The sample represents 8% of the INREV Vehicles database of 489 funds with a gross asset value of EUR 287 bn.
INREV CEO Lisette van Doorn used the conference in Lisbon to call on fund managers, investors and other players in the non-listed real estate funds to respond to a white paper which sets out integrated guidelines for the industry.
