Yesterday, I attended the PERE Real Estate CFOs Forum. These are my notes from this session:
- Moderator: Steve Felix, Head of Client Relations-Real Estate, Aviva Investors
- Ira Bergstein, Principal & CFO, Palisades Financial, LLC
- Jack Foster, Head of Real Estate, Franklin Templeton Real Estate Advisors
- Asha Richards, Vice President & General Counsel for the Private Equity Funds Group, Brookfield Asset Management Inc.
What is the compliance officer’s role in fund-raising?
Number one is creating a system and process for creating consistent marketing materials and messages to investors. Process and consistency are key. You need to push on the distribution team to be consistent.
What’s changed in fund-raising?
There is a lot of focus on track records and how the firms have dealt with the issues over the last 12 months. There is an increased focus on real estate and investors are paying closer attention to the real estate investments. Part of this is the personal nature of real estate. People inevitably compare their house and the residential real estate markets to the commercial real estate markets.
What’s changed about what investors and potential investors are looking for?
Investors are looking for information to be delivered faster. Investors are looking for projections of distributions, even if they are speculative. Investors are looking for more standardization in the reports.
