New diversified property fund on horizon
Western Australian-based property fund specialist Aspen Group is developing a diversified property fund aimed at broadening the reach of its current group of funds by allowing individuals access via the investment platforms.
The main feature of the new fund will be daily liquidity that will enable it to be included on investment platforms and a variety of the major financial planning dealer groups’ approved product lists.
“What we’re going to provide via this fund is real liquidity, something that’s open for investment, and huge diversification through investment in a wide variety of products,” Aspen Group chief investment officer Anton Lawrence said.
The fund will invest in the majority of unlisted property trusts Aspen currently manages, including its flagship Parks Property Fund and Diversified Property Fund as well as some wholesale offerings that retail investors have not had access to until now.
Aspen is also in the process of putting together additional individual funds that will also be included in the overarching product once finalised.
“What we’re trying to do is produce a series of funds and trusts that don’t invest in just office, retail and industrial. There’s the tourist park fund, I suspect we’ll do some retirement village funds, we’ve already got some residential sub-division funds, and we’ll be able to pull a suit of those funds together for investors,” Lawrence said.
The fund will also be looking to invest up to 20 per cent of the portfolio in other managers’ products that offer complementary exposure to Aspen’s in-house products.
Liquidity will be controlled via cash holdings and an allocation to a listed property trust that is yet to be determined.
According to Lawrence, the minimum cash holding will be around 5 to 10 per cent with no real maximum limit to allow the fund manager to produce better returns from this liquid component.
The fund is yet to be named and is likely to be launched in October of this year.
Aspen will provide the seed capital for the fund, which, according to Lawrence, is anticipated to be more than $1 million.
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