Luxembourg’s real estate investment sector has recovered strongly from the economic slowdowns caused by the ongoing global Covid-19 pandemic, according to figures released in the Association of the Luxembourg Fund industry’s (ALFI) 15th annual Luxembourg real estate investment funds survey. (Full version link below.)
The industry saw assets under management of REIFs increase by 14.83% over the past year, a substantial increase over the comparable period of last year’s 10.54% growth. This brings the total assets under management to EUR 104.4 billion, according to a 30 September 2021 report by the CSSF, Luxembourg’s financial sector regulator.
“This year’s ALFI REIF survey illustrates how strongly the real estate fund industry continues to grow even during challenging times,” said Emmanuel Gutton, Director Legal and Tax of ALFI.
The number of vehicles surveyed has grown by 69, bringing the total to 518 surveyed vehicles. The interest in REIFs is confirmed with 134 funds surveyed, compared with 98 in 2020. As in previous years, new funds were launched overwhelmingly by initiators/AIFMs from Europe (mainly Benelux, Germany and the UK) and from the USA.
“Covid-19 put the liquidity of real estate funds to the test,” said Francisco Da Cunha, Real Estate Tax and Infrastructure Sector leader at Deloitte Luxembourg and Co-Chair of the ALFI REIF Survey working group. “We studied these exceptional market effects and found that only 1% of the REIFs surveyed encountered special situations over the last 12 months, 2 funds temporarily suspended redemptions in 2020 and 3% indicated that they had large redemptions in that time frame. This is testament to the resilience of the REIF market.”
The ALFI report also mentioned the launch of 30 new fund units in 2020, with 12 as of September 2021, bringing the REIF population surveyed to 518. However, it noted that “there has been a decrease of fund unit launches during the Covid-19 pandemic”. The report authors consider this to be something to be further analysed in next year’s survey.
The report noted the “continuous and significant drop” of “Core” investment style funds, with 31% of the surveyed fund being so classified. As Core funds decrease, “Core+” funds are increasing, (13% last year) with the rest split between “Value-added” (32%, up 4 pps) and “Opportunistic” fund strategies, which have remained stable with 19% in both 2020 and 2021.
Looking at fund structures, liquidity and durations, 68% of the surveyed funds are closed ended, up slightly over the past 3 surveys. Closed-ended funds are continuously increasing as open-ended funds with restriction decrease. (29% in 2019, 25% in 2020 and 22% this year.)
In terms of fund size and gearing, smaller funds are still the majority of REIFs, in line with previous surveys. 52% have a NAV of under EUR 100 million. 141 funds reported a target NAV of under EUR 100 million. 50% of funds intend to keep their gearing under a 20% loan-to-value (LTV) , while a further 43% want to keep their LTV levels to below 60%, confirming a significant increase of this category in recent years.