ANREV sets shop in Hong Kong

The Association for Investors in Non-listed Real Estate Vehicles (INREV Europe) is sending its former acting CEO Andrea Carpenter on a three month secondment to ANREV in Asia. Any player which intends to be active in the real estate investment industry is encouraged to be part of ANREV to participate in shaping the future of the sector. Pushpendra Sharma spoke with Jeremy Stewardson (JS), ANREV’s Executive Director regarding these initiatives, their plans for Asia and how ANREV hopes to achieve them.

PERE: What is the vision and objective of ANREV in Asia?
JS: ANREV’s primary objectives are to improve transparency and accessibility for increased liquidity, be a source of research and market information and promote sustainability and best practices in all aspects of investing across the industry.
PERE: Why should corporations become members of ANREV? What benefits do you offer to your members?
JS: The Asian non-listed property funds market is a maturing market. ANREV membership allows participants to support growth and transparency to ensure highest levels of best practice. Benefits include access to ANREV’s Vehicles Database and another important intangible benefit is the ability for industry players to network. In the future, ANREV also expects to add training and education initiatives for its members in Asia.

PERE: What is ANREV’s policy towards transparency? What sort of a strategy are you going to adopt towards achieving this and with respect to INREV’s Guidelines do you envisage any changes for ANREV?
JS: Transparency is an integral part of ANREV’s mission and objectives so all our activities are geared towards achieving this through research, promotion of INREV Guidelines, or through ANREV’s networking opportunities. ANREV endorses INREV Guidelines and has been promoting them across Asia since December’09. Developed markets such as Australia, Singapore and Japan have been particularly receptive and the emerging markets too, recognise the benefits of industry standards and guidelines for reporting and corporate governance. Although there are regional differences, INREV Guidelines suit the market needs at this time.

PERE: Can you provide us with some information on Andrea Carpenter’s background that is critical to your Asia initiative?
JS: Carpenter has a broad range of experience. She is the Director of Professional Standards and Communications where she plays a pivotal role in INREV’s two cornerstone initiatives, which will also be the cornerstones of our work in Asia. She has served as Interim CEO so she brings experience on how to manage such an organisation. She will also act as an Asia point of contact for the INREV standard data delivery project. Her secondment will cement the co-operation between ANREV and INREV and improve knowledge and adoption of INREV’s guidelines in Asia. She will focus on research, launch the online vehicles database, develop action plan for ANREV Index including investigating current indices.

PERE: During Carpenter’s three month secondment to Asia, what does ANREV and INREV hope to achieve? Also, is the secondment the first of such initiatives towards improving transparency?
JS: Carpenter’s secondment is not the first and will definitely not be the last exchange between ANREV and INREV. In fact, ANREV’s Research Director Clara Lee spent three months in Europe last year when the two organisations first began their co-operation. The secondment allowed INREV to support and have input into ANREV’s initiatives to ensure comparability and maintain a high standard of output. As more investors emerge outside their domestic borders in Asia, there needs to be improvement in transparency. During Carpenter’s three month secondment, she will work towards establishing ANREV as an important network to encourage transparency within the industry and as well as increase participation by reaching out to new members.