Nareit’s Research and Investor Outreach team conducted 417 meetings during the first half of 2019, with many of the largest and most influential investment organizations within the institutional investment marketplace. This exceeds the 2018 first half total of 353 meetings.
Collectively, these entities represent more than $77 trillion in assets under management or advisement.
The meetings included:
- 101 meetings with prominent domestic and international pension, retirement, and sovereign wealth fund plan sponsors representing close to $4 trillion in assets;
- 50 meetings with investment consultants with assets under advisement of more than $30 trillion; and
- 210 meetings with investment managers that sponsor global and domestic products for the institutional and retail investor market, representing close to $44 trillion of assets under management.
The team held another 56 meetings with organizations and associations supporting the investment management and the retirement industry. Nareit has also been active on the institutional investment conference circuit in 2019, attending 31 events and participating in 19 as a speaker, board member, or sponsor.
In our most recent initiative to educate defined benefit pension plan trustees, Nareit has launched a new resource, pensionsandrealestate.com. This interactive website provides customized content for each user by first having them identify the percentage their pension fund currently has invested in real estate. Based on whether they have a healthy real estate allocation, are underweight real estate, or have no real estate allocation at all, the site provides a series of data points that ultimately speaks to the value of the REIT approach to real estate investment.
As part of Nareit’s program targeting financial intermediaries, the REIT Quick Facts brochure was sent in May 2019 to approximately 25,000 fee-only and fee-based RIAs in the U.S. This piece makes a research-based case to advisors for REIT allocations between 5% and 15%.
On the global front, during the first half of the year, Nareit brought its outreach message to investors in Asia and the Middle East. A European road show will be conducted in September. These global efforts often feature joint meetings with influential partners like the European Public Real Estate Association and the Asia Pacific Real Estate Association.