Survey: Average real estate allocation is 8.4%

Limited partners to private equity funds that also have allocations to real estate have an average real estate allocation of 8.4 percent.

Within the group of LPs surveyed, banks and foundations/endowments had the highest average allocations to real estate.

The figures are part of the newly released PEI-ILPA Global Limited Partner Survey 2008 (link to www.peimedia.com/research) , which was produced jointly by trade association the Institutional Limited Partners Association (ILPA) and PEI Media, the publisher of PERE magazine, PrivateEquityRealEstate.com and Private Equity International magazine.

Nearly 94 percent of the private equity LPs surveyed also had real estate allocations, the report found. Investors were also asked about allocations to the hedge fund and infrastructure asset classes.

The survey garnered responses from the majority of ILPA members as well as from other LPs around the world. The ILPA membership includes the largest backers of private equity in the world.

The PEI-ILPA survey studied queried hundreds of major LPs about their current and future allocations to private equity, as well as their return expectations from the asset class. The survey also asked LPs about their policies with regard to co-investments, secondaries, first-time funds, funds of funds, geographic and strategy allocations.

The ILPA is a not-for-profit association serving limited partner investors in the global private equity industry.