ANREV has launched the third release of the ANREV Pan Asia Open-End Diversified Core Fund Index (ODCI).

Please provide feedback and comments to Ricky Cheng at [email protected] or Amélie Delaunay at [email protected]

The period since the global financial crisis has seen tax authorities around the world tighten their policies towards tax planning.  This has led to an unprecedented level of co-operation resulting in the Common Reporting Standards and the OECD's BEPS initiatives, among other things, but also numerous individual country initiatives that seek to restrict the use of many traditional structuring techniques. While many of the changes seen were not primarily targeted at the fund management industry they are certainly having an impact.

On 25th June 2018, ANREV hosted a round table, bringing together a number of senior professionals from the real estate fund sector in the Asia Pacific region to discuss how these changes are impacting on managers' assessment and management of their tax risk and the commercial impacts flowing from that. 

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ANREV Regulatory & Tax Committee would like to thank the participants who have engaged in the discussion as well as Matthias Feldmann from Clifford Chance and Ivor Morris from KPMG who kindly helped to facilitate the discussion and wrote this paper.

To learn more about this Committee, please click here.

222 Exhibition Street is a 29-storey office building built in 1989. When LaSalle Asia Venture Trust purchased the property in 2015, LaSalle saw an opportunity to improve the building, in particular its sustainability performance to achieve better building efficiency overall.

LaSalle took a long-term, asset lifecycle approach to sustainability at this property, believing that exceptional outcomes can be realized without millions of dollars in capital expenditure.

ANREV has published a guide for the ANREV Australia Core Open End Fund Monthly Index (ACOE) to allow members to better understand the ANREV ACOE.

The ANREV ACOE Guide explains the history, management, inclusion criteria and calculation methodology of the index. It also contains the 2018 publication schedule of ANREV ACOE.

Should you have any questions, please contact [email protected]

The ANREV Australia Core Open End Fund Monthly Index (ACOE) saw a total return of 0.34% in Jul 2018. The ACOE includes 19 funds with a total GAV of AUD 102.81 billion.

Please contact Amélie Delaunay at [email protected] or Ricky Cheng at [email protected] if you have any questions regarding the Index.

Each year, LaSalle estimates the total value of investable commercial real estate and its global distribution. The estimates establish a baseline for the market size of real estate in each country and can help fund managers and investors assess their relative allocations. The relevant investment universe differs by investor type and objectives, and the estimates reflect these differences by breaking the real estate universe into three segments: total investable commercial real estate market size, institutionally-owned, and public.

All three of LaSalle’s estimates increased in the 2018 estimation. Institutionally-owned real estate grew 9% last year, powered mainly by strong price appreciation in Asia Pacific and Continental Europe. LaSalle estimates that institutions own about one-fifth of all investable commercial real estate. The public real estate universe, which is based on our gross asset value estimates rather than market capitalization, only grew 3%. Privatization and delisting activities roughly balanced initial public offering (IPO) activities, but underlying asset appreciation was slower. Public companies own 44% of all institutional-owned real estate, which is down slightly from the 2017 estimation.

With advances in technology such as process automation and artificial intelligence, increasing consideration has been given to its impact on various functions. From a reporting standpoint, such innovations are timely and increasingly welcome as reporting requirements continue to grow, both in scope and in granularity. However, the question remains, are we in a position to make a 'Great Leap Forward' when it comes to each major area of reporting (i.e. financial, asset and ESG, investor, and regulatory), or are we poised to trip at the starting line? Is it better to take a holistic and overarching transformation or is a 'modular' process better suited for finance functions and service providers in the industry.

In 8th June 2018, ANREV hosted a round table where a number of managers, technology experts and advisors sat together and shared their experiences to identify trends and learn from their peers.

This document is for members only. Please login if you do not see the downloads below

ANREV Technology & Innovation Working Group would like to thank the participants who have engaged in the discussion as well as Jayesh Peswani from Alter Domus, who kindly helped to facilitate the discussion. ANREV Technology & Innovation Working
Group would also like to express gratitude to ANREV Professional Standards Committee for assistance in organizing the round table.

To learn more about the working group, please click here.

In July's issue, we have included:

Australia

• ASIC consults on modified AFSL regime for foreign financial services providers
• Government consults on corporate collective investment vehicle bill
• Government releases exposure draft to improve integrity of stapled structures

Cayman Islands

• Important changes to the Cayman Islands Anti-Money Laundering regime

China

• Governor Yi Gang announced measures and timetable for further financial sector opening-up in Bo’ao Forum for Asia
• SAFE increases QDLP and QDIE quotas to USD 5 billion for each programme
• State Council announces reduction to VAT rates and other significant VAT changes

Hong Kong

• Open-ended fund company structure to be introduced on 30 July 2018
• SFC concludes consultation on new OFC Rules and OFC Code
• Proposed changes to the tax bill on privately offered Hong Kong open-ended fund companies
• Ordinance to extend profits tax exemption to privately offered open-ended fund companies in Hong Kong gazetted
• Amendment Ordinance implementing minimum standards of Base Erosion and Profit Shifting package and codifying transfer pricing principles gazetted
• Hong Kong SFC provides update on Manager-in-Charge (MIC) regime
• Two-tiered profits tax rates regime to be implemented from April 1 this year

Indonesia

• Real estate investment funds gain regulatory clarity in Indonesia

Japan

• FSA consults on corporate disclosure

Malaysia

• Abolishment of GST & introduction of SST post General Election

Mauritius

• Review of Taxation of Global Business Companies
• Amendment on Financial Services Act

Singapore

• Singapore government raises additional buyer’s stamp duty rates and tightens loan-to-value limits for residential properties
• MAS Issued Consultation Paper on Guidelines on Provision of Financial Advisory Service
• MAS to strengthen individual accountability of senior managers in financial institutions
• Stamp Duties (Agreements for Sale of Equity Interests) (Remission) Rules 2018 come into effect

South Korea

• Regulatory reform on entry barriers to financial services industry

Europe

• Enforcement of EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
• Proposed changes to AIFMD on Pre-marketing

Lastly, we would like to thank our committee who helped putting together the Newsletter. Details about this committee can be found here.

• Funds of funds delivered positive returns of 5.1% in 2017

• Closed end vehicles outperformed their open end peers in 2017.

• Core vehicles returned 4.7% while non-core generated 8%

Five consecutive years of positive growth saw funds of funds achieve a positive return of 5.1% in 2017.

In total, ANREV and INREV Funds of Funds Universes (‘Universe’) contains 60 funds of funds that are managed by 25 managers. Collectively these vehicles represent a total Net Asset Value (NAV) of $14.7 billion.  Ten fund of funds indicated their preference to remain anonymous and therefore the online vehicles universe only shows 50 funds of funds.  Performance data was based on 26 vehicles. 

The performance data presented in this report is not intended to serve as a benchmark and should be used for research and information purposes only.