S. Africa's Fairtree launches real estate UCITS fund
Fairtree Asset Management, a leading multi-strategy alternative and long-only investment manager has launched its second Irish UCITS fund, the Fairtree Global Listed Real Estate Fund, on the Prescient Global Funds ICAV platform.
This follows the successful launch of the Fairtree Global Flexible Income Plus Fund on the Prescient platform last year.
The firm's existing Fairtree Global Real Estate Prescient Fund has converted into a Feeder Fund that will invest directly in the Irish UCITS, following regulatory approval by South Africa's Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA).
As proud as we are of our South African roots and high-quality track record in our local market, our clients are requesting we provide solutions for them in global markets."
The UCITS launch coincides with the third anniversary of the strategy, which has a solid three-year track record in its South African format, and which has been ranked first amongst South African-managed global developed market property funds in 2018 and 2019.
The investment objective of the fund is to provide investors with capital appreciation over the medium to longterm with exposure to international real estate assets. The portfolio has a strong Asian focus, as Portfolio Manager Rob Hart has lived and managed portfolios in Asia for twenty years and believes that global developed market indices will be comprised of more Asian real estate companies over time.
According to Hart, Fairtree Global Listed Real Estate will remain committed to providing actively managed global real estate exposure for investors, who require access to a high-quality portfolio of international real estate assets.
"Our fund features our top-down ‘three bites of the apple' philosophy: First geographical location, then property sector and then stock specifics including the quality of the assets and management, valuations and other factors," he said.
"We run a concentrated, actively-managed portfolio of 30-40 names which tick the boxes in terms of region, sector and stock, which form a best ideas portfolio, where new ideas replace dated ones on a regular basis."
Francis Wheeler, Fairtree's head of Institutional Business, added, "We are excited to be able to partner with Prescient to offer this second UCITS in our fund range to clients. As proud as we are of our South African roots and high-quality track record in our local market, our clients are requesting we provide solutions for them in global markets, and we've spent several years building capabilities with exceptional skill to meet this demand."
"Global Real Estate offers excellent growth, currency and diversification benefits which we look forward to delivering to our local and global clients."
"We are proud to welcome Fairtree's latest fund to our flagship Irish UCITS umbrella platform and look forward to supporting the Fairtree team as the fund grows," said Rob Childs, head of International at Prescient Fund Services.
Fairtree has offices in London, Cape Town, Guernsey and the Hague, and clients include sovereign wealth funds, insurers and global allocators based in the Americas, Europe and the Middle East.
The Fairtree Global Listed Real Estate Fund is approved for marketing and distribution in Ireland and the UK under the UCITS passporting regulations as well as South Africa where the FSCA has approved it as a Section 65 fund.
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