INREV severs IPD ties

The European Association for Investors in Non-listed Real Estate Vehicles (INREV) has ended a data provision relationship with the Investment Property Databank.

The association notified IPD of the decision at the end of 2008, ending a relationship which has existed since 2004.

It is likely to effectively put INREV in direct competition with IPD on certain property data products.

According to IPD’s website, it has been holding a database of property investment funds investing in Europe and Asia for INREV. From this database IPD has been compiling the INREV fund database indices and the INREV indices, a collection of European benchmarks measuring the aggregate performance of property investment funds across Europe.

The decision to drop IPD follows moves by INREV to beef up its own data and research team giving it the capacity to collect and manage data independently. The organisation, which exists primarily to serve institutional investors in real estate funds, hired Andrea Carpenter from the Urban Land Institute in 2007 as director of research and market information.

As an organisation it has also been branching out into other areas of late such as training and education, for which it has incorporated a private company in the Netherlands. IPD also provides training and events.

News of the severing of ties with IPD comes as INREV approaches a key date in its corporate calendar. In April it will be hosting its annual general meeting to be held in Athens for the first time. INREV has around 320 members and is based in the Netherlands. By contrast IPD is based in London and has a network of international offices, including in Australia and South Africa. 

A spokeswoman at INREV said the organisation would begin the process of in-sourcing the data collection. “The reason for bringing the data collection in-house is because we now have the skills and resources required in-house.”

IPD is telling clients how it intends to expand its pooled property fund 'suite'. In a statement, it says IPD will maintain property fund databases and index publications. “The European property investment market will benefit from two parallel approaches to measuring the performance of the unlisted sector. It is, however, anticipated that these independent services will each develop into comprehensive and complementary offerings,” it says of IPD's and INREV's services.

It adds that from the global universe of Pooled Property Funds, IPD will draw out sub-groups of funds to develop pooled property fund indices (ppfi) based on net asset value performance for both national and cross-border markets.

“During the course of 2009 the IPD Fund Services team will launch PPFI for more individual countries in Europe, pan-European and Australian markets, together with a global database of pooled property funds. Acting as the property fund industries' utility and partner, the primary goals of this work are to improve transparency of the global pooled property fund market and continue to support property as one of the three key investment asset classes.”