• Real estate assets under management grew to US$2.19 trillion
• The big managers keep getting bigger
• North American and global strategies are much larger than other strategies

Total real estate assets under management (AUM) reached US$2.19 trillion in 2015. Overall, the 10 largest fund managers represent 41.0% of the total AUM, up from 36.5% last year.

With US$149.8 billion of total real estate assets under management, Brookfield Asset Management tops the list in the 2016 survey. The Blackstone Group ranks second overall with US$147.6 billion of total real estate AUM, while TH Real Estate & TIAA occupies the third position with US$120.8 billion of global real estate AUM.

In this issue, we have included: 

 Australia

• Australian federal budget update: Tax change to attract capital from overseas investors

China

• China new VAT rates and rules: Impact to real estate and construction industry

• China releases Five-year Plan for financial reform

• AMAC issues administrative rules on distribution of private funds

Hong Kong

• SFC issues circular on timetable for implementation of new professional investor regime

Japan

• The impact of recent amendments to the Article 63 exemption on partnership-type funds in Japan

Korea

• New legislation mandatory strengthened corporate governance standards on financial companies

Singapore

• MAS announces initiatives to boost fund management industry

Global

• New margin requirements for transactions in uncleared derivatives will affect real estate, infrastructure, private equity and microfinance fund managers in Asia

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

For details of this working group, please click here

New Sustainability Reporting Guidelines bring reporting methods up-to-date

Sustainability initiatives have advanced to play an important role in the operational performance of real estate investment vehicles and sustainability reporting has become a standard part of a company’s annual reports.

To support this the INREV Sustainability Reporting Guidelines have been revised to increase visibility and provide insight into a vehicle’s Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) efforts and also details their next course of action for improvements.

Data contributions were received from 84 funds with a total gross asset value of US$87.9 billion. The All Asia Index headline return was 11.7% in local currency for 2015 compared with 9.0% in 2014.

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 next year.

Together with the release of Annual Index 2015, ANREV has recalculated the Q4 2015 Quarterly Index. Members can move to ANREV Analysis Tool to check out the updated result.

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.

Record performance of the ANREV all funds index

• ANREV’s All Funds’ Index returned 4% in Q4 2015
• Core funds, Australian funds, open end funds and single sector funds all register their best performance since the inception of the ANREV index in 2010

Data contributions were received from 84 funds with a total gross asset value of US$81.9 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 May.

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.

It is an index showing the performance of non-listed real estate funds on a global scale and is created by ANREV, INREV and NCREIF. This publication includes the performance figures up to Q4 2015.

The GREFI was updated for the first time on a quarterly basis following the first quarterly release of the ANREV Index for Q1 2014. From Q1 2014 onwards, the GREFI has been updated 12 weeks after the quarter end. This index release follows the same structure of previous releases. The technical specification has also updated and all numbers are also available in an Excel file.

The GREFI Q4 2015 update release includes the performance of 430 funds compared to 454 funds as of Q3 2015. This difference is due to the lower number of funds delivering data in Asia Pacific and Europe, as some funds need additional time to finalise and audit year-end figures.

Please send your feedback on this consultation release to [email protected].

The ANREV / INREV / NCREIF Capital Raising Survey 2016 explores capital raising activities into the non-listed real estate industry in 2015. The particular focus of the report is on Asia Pacific vehicles. The survey provides insights by region, product type, investment strategy, and where possible presents a historical comparison based on previous studies.

The 2016 survey attracted a record number of participants with 153 fund managers globally completing the questionnaire, a 7.8% increase compared to 2015 when 142 fund managers responded to the survey. In total, the majority (85 or 55.6%) of fund managers were from Europe, followed by those domiciled in Asia Pacific (46 or 30.1%) and North America (22 or 14.4%). 

Highlights:

• US$134.8 billion of new equity raised for non-listed real estate in 2015
•  Non-listed real estate vehicles continue to attract investors of all types
• Pension funds are the biggest source of capital globally 
• Europe was the most popular target market
• US$18.4 billion raised for Asia Pacific

ANREV, INREV and NCREIF would like to thank fund managers for their participation in the Survey.

For further information please contact [email protected]

In 2010, Deutsche Asset Management’s (Deutsche AM) real estate business acquired G-Square, a 6,800 square meter office building in Tokyo.

Upon acquisition, G-Square underwent improvements to upgrade the building in order to qualify and apply for the CASBEE (Comprehensive Assessment System for Built Environment Efficiency).

Similar to BREEAM in the U.K. or LEED in the U.S., CASBEE is a tool for assessing and rating the environmental performance of buildings and built environment in Japan. BEE (Building Environment Efficiency), using Q and L as the two assessment categories, is the core concept of CASBEE. The assessment results for buildings can be ranked on a diagram as class C (poor), class B-, class B+, class A, and class S (excellent), in order of increasing BEE value.

Earning a CASBEE (Comprehensive Assessment System for Built Environment Efficiency) “A” rank is an important differentiator among a tenant base in the Shibuya submarket. This will attract younger, creative technology companies that focus more on modern, healthy workplaces and resource efficiency.