CBRE Global Investors announces the merger of CBRE UK Property Fund (UKPF) with Electricity Supply Pension Scheme (ESPS) UK property portfolio to create a £1.47 billion fund.
The fund is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and is operated as a Property Authorised Investment Fund (PAIF).
CBRE Global Investors has been the investment manager of the ESPS’ direct UK property portfolio since 2006. Electricity Pension Trustee Limited (EPTL), the scheme trustee of ESPS, had for some time been considering the long term options for its UK property portfolio. EPTL’s investments advisors, Aon Hewitt, put forward a number of options and, after consideration, it was decided to merge the UK property portfolio with an existing core balanced fund. Following a process run by Aon Hewitt, the CBRE UK Property Fund, managed by CBRE Global Investors, was selected.
Michael Ness, Head of UK for CBRE Global Investors commented:
”We are delighted that ESPS, as a highly valued separate account client, chose to continue their relationship with CBRE Global Investors. The fund is well positioned to continue delivering out-performance for all our investors, with a first rate team and simplified structure.
This merger is indicative of a theme that CBRE Global Investors are seeing across a number of our domestic and global investors – an increasing desire for scale and simplicity”.
Hannah Marshall, Fund Manager of the newly-formed PAIF, commented: “This is a very exciting time, the merger establishes the PAIF as one of the major players in the UK market.
The ESPS portfolio was complementary to the existing fund and had a good performance track record. Our investors will now be able to benefit from the PAIF structure which is more flexible and efficient. We are also able to offer overall lower fee charges and a larger diversified investor base. With the increased size of the fund, we now have the ability to further exploit economies of scale.
With all these changes in place, we firmly believe that the fund is very competitive and will meet our existing investor requirements as well as be very attractive to new investors.”
Aon Hewitt, PWC, Eversheds and Mayer Brown acted for ESPS, BLP and Nabarro for the CBRE UK Property Fund.