How investors' property needs are changing

Tom Walker and Hugo Machin, managers of the Schroder Global Real Estate Investment Trust, explain how the need for liquidity is changing how, and where, funds invest in the property sector.

Over the past ten years global property has delivered returns of 10% per annum, outperforming equities, and beaten only by oil and gold. More recently, a notable driver towards the asset class has been the changing nature of pension funds. The decline of defined benefit pensions, and rise of defined contribution pensions, is resulting in an increased need for liquidity, supporting the case to access real estate via the listed sector. According to Towers Watson, many pension funds' allocation to equities and bonds have fallen in favour of alternative asset classes, while the National A...