The Securities and Exchange Commission has been acquiring troves of data about private funds through the Form PF filing requirement. Some, including myself, have been skeptical that the SEC will figure out what to do with the data as a tool to protect investors. But, the SEC has been able to compile statistics and published a suite of new data and analyses of private fund statistics and trends. The SEC released the third quarter private fund statistics.
The number of real estate funds reporting on Form PF has increased.
The number of real estate funds reporting on Form PF has increased.
| period | 2014Q4 | 2015Q1 | 2015Q2 | 2015Q3 | 2015Q4 | 2016Q1 | 2016Q2 | 2016Q3 |
| Funds | 1,802 | 1,800 | 1,801 | 1,806 | 2,056 | 2,093 | 2,091 | 2,108 |
| Advisers | 262 | 263 | 264 | 265 | 288 | 290 | 288 | 290 |
| Net NAV ($billions) | 280 | 280 | 281 | 319 | 323 | 323 | 323 | 323 |
The rise from 1802 to 2108 in advisers is a big increase. There is only a small rise of 52 from the end of 2015 to the end of the third quarter in 2016. It’s the larger multi-platform Form PF filers who file quarterly.
Pure real estate fund advisers are only filing quarterly. Given that, I didn’t expect to see much change intra-year, and that held true.
There is a wealth of information in the SEC’s report. I’m still looking for some trends.
Sources: