On May 12, for the second consecutive year, Nareit partnered with the National Council for Teacher Retirement (NCTR) on a webinar on the real estate asset class. The event, titled “The Real Estate Asset Class: Where Are We Now? Outlook & Investor Trends,” featured Nareit Executive Vice President John Worth, who shared a perspective on why pension systems should consider REITs and real estate as fundamental to their investment portfolios. Worth provided a research-based overview of how real estate has fared over the past 16 months, and shared a perspective on the macro-outlook for the sector, including a discussion of some of the key risks and potential opportunities and how these may impact pension real estate portfolios.
Joining Nareit for the webinar, Sherry Rexroad, managing director and the senior product strategist for BlackRock’s Global Real Asset Securities team, talked about how investment managers have been navigating the market, and discussed common themes and emerging trends among their investor clients. Bob Jacksha, the chief investment officer for the $15 billion New Mexico Educational Retirement Board (ERB), rounded out the webinar panel, sharing his thoughts as an investor in both public and private real estate on the role real estate and REITs have played in the ERB’s investment portfolio and his overall experience with the asset class.
NCTR’s membership includes 63 state, territorial, and local pension systems, which serve more than 19 million active and retired teachers and other public employees. These 63 systems have combined pension and retirement assets exceeding $2 trillion under management.