06 JANUARY 2014 F&C Investments expands Real Estate Securities range with global fund

F&C Investments today announced the expansion of its real estate fund range, with the launch of a real estate fund offering investors exposure to listed real estate securities globally.
The F&C Global Real Estate Securities Fund is co-managed by Alban Lhonneur and Marcus Phayre-Mudge, who have over eight years and 22 years of experience respectively in the real estate sector. Both Alban and Marcus are part of F&C Investments' eight strong real estate securities team, which manages over £850 million in real estate equities.
The UCITS-compliant, UK-domiciled OEIC fund uses an enhanced long strategy to invest in global real estate securities markets, with the objective to deliver a total return greater than the FTSE EPRA/NAREIT Developed Global Index1, in all market conditions. The portfolio of the fund will be constructed to maintain the same regional exposure as the benchmark, but will use different investment processes to achieve alpha in Europe (15% of the index), North America (50%) and Australia (7%), and track the benchmark in Asia ex-
Australia (28%).
The Fund intends to capitalise on the alpha generation track record of F&C Real Estate Securities Fund, a market leading European real estate securities Fund, which has generated 14.35% of net outperformance2 and beaten its benchmark in 13 out of 15 quarters since its launch in April 2010.
Similarly to the F&C Real Estate Securities Fund, the F&C Global Real Estate Securities fund retains a long bias, but compared to traditional long-only products it also has the flexibility to use short positions in individual stocks and indices to actively manage volatility and risk, through a net exposure range of 60%-
140%.

Marcus Phayre-Mudge, co-manager, commented: "The new F&C Global Real Estate Securities fund builds on our existing and well established offering in pan-European real estate securities, as we seek to meet the requirements of investors who are increasingly looking for global property investment opportunities.



"Historically, global real estate securities have reacted well to improving macro events, offering an attractive alternative to fixed income with an average dividend yield of 3.7%. It is anticipated that global real estate securities could deliver a 7%3 earnings growth for the next year based on rental growth coming through."
The new fund will fit within the existing range offered by the team, which includes: