UNITED STATES - San Mateo County Employees Retirement Association has rescinded a $70m (€48.5m) capital redemption order for the Invesco Core Real Estate Fund as the value of its overall investment portfolio has improved significantly over the past couple of years and officials no longer feel the need to withdraw assets.

San Mateo County first placed the redemption order with Invesco in January 2008 after the poor performance in the equity markets led its real estate holdings to expand over its 6% targeted property allocation by 2%.

This situation has since changed as equities made a comeback in 2009 and the value of the pension fund's real estate portfolio is now back to its targeted allocation - much like many pension funds in the US.

Information from consultancy firm The Townsend Group suggests the length of redemption queues for the open-ended commingled fund universe reduced by 19.3% during the third quarter of 2009 as asset valuations improved and investors dropped out of the queue.

The total value of the redemption queue has reduced from $11.64bn by the middle of 2009 to $9.4bn by the end of September, but it is with core commingled funds where the shift in thinking is prevalent as its queue has reduced from $9.7bn to $7.8bn.

The pension fund holds its entire real estate portfolio in the Invesco fund but San Mateo County saw the value of its Invesco fund investment drop from $165m-$170m in January last year to $110m by the end of the third quarter 2009.

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