Perennial has poached the entire Colonial First State (CFS) property securities team, headed by Stephen Hayes, to launch a “specialist property boutique” fund.
According to Anthony Patterson, Perennial managing director, the new fund, which launched yesterday as Perennial Real Estate Investments, will soon release a domestic property securities trust and a global property securities trust. Patterson said he was “delighted” at being able to lure Hayes across from CFS to push Perennial into the property sector. Hayes, who was eight years at CFS finished up there last Friday and took with him the other five members of the property securities team. Hayes said Perennial’s “keen interest and business proposal” convinced him to jump ship from CFS. Under the offer the investment managers will own half the new property business with Perennial owning the remainder. CFS told I&T News yesterday that its Australian Equities Core team, headed by Martin Littler, will manage the property securities portfolio in the interim. David Dixon, CFS chief investment officer, Colliers International will manage the CFS global property security funds. “We are confident the funds will continue to be managed effectively under this interim arrangement and we have initiated the recruitment process for a new leader for this business,” CFS stated. “The listed property securities business, which covers domestic and international markets, has always been an important part of our business and we are committed to its development.” Perennial Real Estate Investments will be based in Sydney with offices in Hong Kong, London and New York. “Initially we hope to secure a small group of institutional investors either through mandates or pooled trusts, after which our focus will be on the sale of this capability through third party platforms,” Patterson said. “Our global capability will be marketed both domestically and internationally. We expect considerable interest from offshore institutions looking to participate in a professionally managed portfolio in the fast growing global REITS market.” CFS’ property securities team currently manages $3.7 billion.
New research reveals pension funds destroyed value relative to benchmarks in the 2023 calendar year, to the tune of an average of 140 basis points. The two main reasons were a drag on performance in private markets and real assets.
Simon HoyleOctober 16, 2024
