Institutional Investors

The Institutional Investment community is comprised of two key segments: defined benefit (DB) plans, including both public and private sponsors, advisors and consultants, and in which we also include endowments and foundations; and defined contribution (DC) plans, including sponsors, providers and consultants.

Defined benefit plans have long incorporated direct real estate investment into their portfolios. The issues facing the publicly traded real estate investment industry regarding the DB community are fourfold: (1) to promote and accelerate the further acceptance of real estate investment through REITs as part or all of a core real estate allocation; (2) to educate the investment community about the REIT and publicly traded real estate industry; (3) to remove institutional barriers that discourage or inhibit the free flow of capital to the publicly traded real estate industry; and (4) to correct outdated or incorrect information, data, publications and lingering misconceptions with respect to REITs.

The objectives regarding defined contribution plans are threefold: (1) to increase the number of plan providers that include real estate stocks as a core asset among their menu of distinct investment choices, including their target risk-based (lifestyle) funds, target date-based (lifecycle) funds and “programmatic” managed accounts; (2) to increase the number of plan sponsors which then adopt such choices for the benefit of their employees; and (3) to increase the number of plan participants that in turn choose to allocate part of their tax-deferred savings to real estate stocks.