Aviva Investors’ real estate business wins top pension industry accolades

Aviva Investors’ real estate business stole the show at the recent Professional Pensions Fund Awards by scooping two of the most prestigious awards from a field that included all of the biggest names in the property sector.

This year, Aviva Investors picked up two of the pension industry’s top awards for real estate investment at the prestigious Professional Pensions Fund Awards held at Knightsbridge’s Jumeirah Carlton Tower Hotel on 27 November.

At the awards, the success of the Encore+ Fund, which has been co-managed by Aviva Investors and LaSalle Investment Management for almost a decade, was recognised with the Pan-European Property Manager of the Year Award. Meanwhile, our Lime Property Fund, run by Renos Booth and Andrew Davey, lifted the Long Income Property Manager of the Year Award. This was especially gratifying for the fund’s multi-award winning managers as it came hard on the heels of the accolade the fund received at the recent IPD/IPF UK Property Investment Awards. Here the Lime Fund was named overall winner of the ten-year award for the highest ten-year absolute risk-adjusted return of any fund in the pensions universe.

The Pan-European Property Manager of the Year Award

In winning this coveted award, Aviva Investors and LaSalle Investment Management pipped both CBRE Global Investors and Invesco Real Estate to the post.

The open-ended Encore+ Fund offers investors access to a diversified portfolio of actively managed continental European real estate which aims to deliver a stable and growing level of income alongside the potential for long-term capital appreciation. The jointly managed fund is now approaching its tenth anniversary but it’s a fund that has attracted industry plaudits ever since its earliest days. This is underlined by the fact that, thanks partly to its enviable distribution yield, the Encore+ Fund has consistently placed in the top three performing funds by total return (on a three-year rolling basis) in the Pan European Property Funds Balanced Funds Index (PEPFI)1.

This track record of consistent outperformance and the strong fund growth it has delivered was recognised by the Professional Pensions judging panel which included a swathe of pension scheme chief investment officers, trustees and other key figures from across the industry.

In awarding the trophy to Aviva Investors and LaSalle, the judges also emphasised the “impressive market coverage” that derives from the long-standing partnership between one of the UK’s biggest institutional fund managers and one of Europe’s very largest dedicated asset managers. They concluded that the Encore+ Fund, “managed to blend core fund management expertise with acumen in sourcing and transacting European deals” and that by combining their specialties the two managers had demonstrated, “huge talent in unlocking value from investments”.


Source: Aviva Investors as at 30 September 2015. Past performance is net of fees. Past performance is not a guide to the future. 

The Long Income Property Manager of the Year Award

In lifting this award, Aviva Investors came out tops in a significant field of well-known UK real estate managers including the likes of Legal & General, M&G Investments, Standard Life and Pramerica Investment Management. However, it’s clear that while numerous other managers have followed Aviva Investors into UK long-lease assets since we first targeted the sector almost 20 years ago, few have been able to replicate our success.

When it launched in 2004, the Lime Property Fund was still one of the first secure income property funds. Today it has grown to over £1.6 billion in size, thanks to strong new investment in the last year which has already resulted in around £325 million of new investment across nine long-leases assets. The Lime Fund’s track record for consistent, low volatility distributions of circa five per cent a year means that it is currently recognised as both the most secure investable balanced fund and least volatile fund in the IPD universe – a distinction it has maintained since the year it launched.

In making the award, the judges were quick to recognise the excellent reputation that the fund enjoys within the pensions industry and were impressed by the consistency with which the fund has continued to deliver “highly secure, very long-term, index-linked returns”. The fund drew further praise for how it continued “to do what it says on the tin”. The judges also drew attention to the quality of the investor education that Aviva Investors continues to provide “focussing on the security, inflation-linkage and income potential of its offering”.

Different by design

Such considerations form an important part of the awards process as, by setting out to celebrate excellence among those asset managers serving UK workplace pension schemes, the Professional PensionsFund Awards focus on more than just performance. An initial shortlist is drawn up by the investment consultant Aon Hewitt, which highlights those managers with both excellent performance and strong growth in assets under management. However, the judges’ final decision is also based on the innovation that each fund manager has shown when it comes to product and client service.

Notes to editors

Except where stated as otherwise, the source of all information is Aviva Investors Global Services Limited (“Aviva Investors”) as at 15 December 2015. Unless stated otherwise any opinions expressed are those of Aviva Investors. They should not be viewed as indicating any guarantee of return from an investment managed by Aviva Investors nor as advice of any nature. The value of an investment and any income from it may go down as well as up and the investor may not get back the original amount invested.

Where funds are invested in real estate/infrastructure, investors may not be able to switch or cash in an investment when they want because real estate/infrastructure may not always be readily saleable. If this is the case we may defer a request to switch or cash in units. Investors should also bear in mind that the valuation of real estate is generally a matter of valuer’s opinion rather than fact.

Lime Property Fund Unit Trust is an open-ended Jersey property unit trusts regulated by the Jersey Financial Services Commission. Units in the unit trust are being offered to institutional investors by invitation only in accordance with restrictions imposed by the Jersey Financial Services Commission.

Encore+ (the “Fund") is a euro-denominated, Luxembourg fonds commun de placement (FCP) established pursuant to Part II of the Luxembourg law of 17 December 2010 relating to undertakings for collective investment, as may be amended from time to time. Accordingly, units in Encore+ are reserved to Institutional Investors and Well-Informed Investors who are aware of the risks attaching to an investment in a Fund investing in direct or indirect interests in real estate. The Fund has no separate legal personality and qualifies as an Alternative Investment Fund (“AIF”) for the purposes of AIFMD.

The Management Company of the Fund is Aviva Investors Luxembourg S.A. The Management Company has also been authorised as the Alternative Investment Fund Manager (“AIFM”) of the Fund by the CSSF and acts in its capacity as the AIFM of the Fund since 18 August 2014. Aviva Investors Global Services Limited has been appointed by the Management Company as the Fund Manager of the Fund. The Fund Manager has appointed LaSalle Investment Management as the Asset Manager to the Fund. LaSalle Investment Management is also the Property Manager and Advisor.

LaSalle Investment Management is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to provide investment management services. Its FCA registration can be found listed on the FCA website (www.fsa.gov.uk/register/). The FCA registration number for LaSalle Investment Management is 179466.

Issued by Aviva Investors Global Services Limited, registered in England No. 1151805. Registered Office: St. Helen’s, 1 Undershaft, London EC3P 3DQ. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and a member of the Investment Association. Contact us at Aviva Investors Global Services Limited, St. Helen’s, 1 Undershaft, London EC3P 3DQ.

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