Within the Asia Pacific real estate industry the last few years has seen a steady supply of newly launched open end real estate funds, aimed at keeping up with constantly evolving investor demands, and at the same time highlighting the improved maturity of the market and the need for stable returns.

Whilst many fund managers in the region are launching or considering launching these funds, there are considerable structural and operational challenges which need to be navigated, such as valuation, liquidity terms, choice of structure and domicile for effective tax and distribution, fees and use of leverage to name a few.

In response to many questions being raised on these vehicles, PwC and ANREV hosted a round table where ANREV members from a number of fund managers across four locations (Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney and Shanghai) discussed the opportunities and challenges of managing Asia Pacific open end real estate funds.

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ANREV Professional Standards Committee would like to thank the funds’ managers who have participated in the discussion as well as Paul Walters and Michael Atkinson from PwC, who kindly helped to facilitate the discussion and wrote this paper.

To learn more about this Committee, please click here.

View two new tutorials developed by INREV on the importance of sustainability and how to use the new INREV Sustainability Reporting Guidelines.

The value of  Sustainability Reporting is that it ensures organisations consider their impacts on sustainability issues, and enables them to be transparent about the issues they face.

This increased transparency leads to better decision making, which helps build and maintain a sustainable real estate sector.

Every day, decisions are made by investors and fund managers which have direct impacts on their stakeholders, the environment, civil society and citizens. These decisions are rarely based on financial information alone.

They are based on a wide variety of environmental, social and governance factors which are presented in the INREV Sustainability Reporting Guidelines.

This is the third annual report on the analysis of the ANREV Quarterly Index to assess the risk-adjusted performance and diversification benefits of Asia-Pacific non-listed real estate funds over 2010-2015. Differences are seen in the performance of specific non-listed real estate strategies, relating to style, country, regions, sectors and structure. This clearly highlights the performance and benefits of Asia-Pacific non-listed real estate in the Asia-Pacific real estate investment landscape.

For further information concerning this ANREV report, contact Professor Graeme Newell at [email protected] or ANREV at [email protected].

In this issue, we have included: 

China

 - China reforms foreign direct investment regulatory regime

Hong Kong

- BEPS consultation paper launched in Hong Kong
- SFC issues circular on automatic exchange of financial account information
- Hong Kong to commence automatic exchange of financial account information in tax matters with Japan and UK in 2018
- SFC issues advisory circular on client identity verification in account opening process
- SFC publishes FAQs on client agreement requirements

Japan

- Guidance on new transfer pricing documentation rules

Singapore

- MAS publishes revised FAQs on licensing and registration of fund management companies
- MAS publishes FAQs on offers of shares, debentures and collective investment schemes
- Financial institutions operating in Singapore can expect more aggressive anti-money laundering/counterterrorist enforcement
- MAS issues revised guidelines on outsourcing in Singapore
- MAS revises guidelines on criteria for grant of a capital markets services licence other than for fund management and real estate investment trust management

United Arab Emirates

- Promoting foreign investment funds in the UAE just got harder

Lastly, we would like to thank our working group who helped putting together the Newsletter.

 
For details of this working group, please click here.

• アジア太平洋地域の不動産市場は海外投資家に対し、都市化や急速な所得増加に裏打ちされた幅広い投資機会を提供している。
• 世界人口上位4 か国のうち3 か国がアジア太平洋諸国であり、いずれも力強い成長を見せている。アジア太平洋地域の高所得経済は、アジア太平洋地域の成長へ低リスクでアクセスする手段を提供する。
• アジア太平洋地域に資本を配分する上で、高所得各国における人口増加、アジア太平洋地域の新興市場における中流階級の拡大、人口高齢化という重要な長期的テーマに注目する戦略を我々は選好する。

 
This is the fourth annual Review of Investor Reporting Trends published undertaken by PwC for ANREV.
 

The compliance in 2016 continue to improve to reach 70.3%, an increase of 260 basis points from the 2015 review.

Whilst much of our discussions this year have centred on the new INREV Sustainability Reporting requirements, we have not included specific compliance with those guidelines due to their release after the 2015 reporting cycle.

We would expect to see further improvements in the years ahead, especially by newly launched vehicles in light of heightened investor expectations generally being experienced.

We would like to extend our sincere thanks to all who shared their valuable time and expertise during this project. 

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This study compares the fees associated with the management of non-listed real estate investment funds globally. The report is based on the regional studies conducted by Pension Real Estate Association (PREA) in the US, European Association for Investors in Non-listed Real Estate Vehicles (INREV) and Asian Association for Investors in Non-listed Real Estate Vehicles (ANREV) during spring and summer 2016.

The INREV and ANREV management fee and terms questionnaire was updated in January 2016 to reflect updates to the INREV Fee and Expense guideline module. Updates to the questionnaire are minor and largely reflect alignment in terminology with the INREV guidelines.

Core funds in Asia Pacific continue to register strong performance

• The ANREV All Funds index returned 2.14% in Q2 2016
• Core funds returned 3.46%
• Japanese and Australian funds continue to show strong performance
• The ANREV Index now covers more than US$100 billion of GAV

Data contributions were received from 93 funds with a total gross asset value of US$100.5 billion. Further detail of the sub-indices which cover fund style and various geographies can be found in the full report.

We would like to thank all the companies that supported the data collection exercise and look forward to your continued support in the next round of data collection in November.

To participate in the ANREV Index, please contact Amélie Delaunay at [email protected] or Henry Lam at [email protected] to take part in this industry-led initiative or if you have any questions about the ANREV Index.