A long awaited GPIF’s trigger is finally announced

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Thursday, 26th April 2017

 

   At the beginning of this month, GPIF – Government Pension Investment Fund, Japan (AUM : 144.8 Trillion JPY / 1.24 Trillion USD) has announced its endeavor to embark on alternative investments in private equity, infrastructure and real estate and it opened a gate for Japanese institutional investors to reach global investment opportunities.  

    At their orientation on April 17th, the world’s largest pension fund has released a plan to recruit its alternative investments firms widely. They start to evaluate the applications from June 1st, 2017.

    Seeking for a more efficient and productive manner in its diversified investments, GPIF incorporated alternative investments into their portfolio and laid out its framework of investment in three phases and categorised as follows;

 

1: Gate Keeper / Fund of Funds

2: Co-investment with institutional investors

3: Specific funds investment

 

    With respect to this recruiting, GPIF will focus on Gatekeepers / Fund of Funds.  They particularly look for domestic investment managers in discretionary investment contract, which have a good track record of global management for building up the most appropriate portfolio scheme for this independent organisation.  


    GPIF sets up three asset classes such as private equity, infrastructure and real estate and particularly in real estate, they separate its mandate in Domestic (Japan) and Global (North America, Europe and Others).

    In an effort to enhancing fairness and transparency as well as support GPIF first ever approach, Towers Watson Investment Services and Russell Investments Japan are appointed as consultants with tasks including due diligence, evaluation process and knowledge.  

    GPIF commented “our first stage begins with three phases, trying to make diversified core global portfolios for this time as an initial phase, before starting co-investments and specific fund investments in specific regions and strategies.”

    The latest Mid Term Plan of GPIF states that alternative investment will be made within maximum 5% of total portfolio, in accordance with development of dedicated team.  Infrastructure, private equities, real estates or other assets determined upon deliberation at the Investment Advisory Committee, are classified as domestic bonds, domestic stocks, international bonds or international stocks, depending on their risk and return profiles.  

    This move by GPIF is a strong signal not limited to fund managers, but also other Japanese institutional investors. We are seeing strong motivations by all types of Japanese institutional investors including pension funds, financial institutions, insurance companies, listed REITs, real estate developers for global real estate investment.

For further details about this newsletter and our services, please contact: Yukihiko Ito (yuki@asteriskrealty.jp) / Elizabeth Deakin (elizabeth@asteriskrealty.jp)

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Asterisk’s upcoming seminars for Japanese institutional investors:

Real estate market cycles and positions in global market (June 2017)

At what timing are Japanese investors are starting overseas real estate investment?

Current market positions in cycles and forecast. (US, UK, EU, AUS, Japan and other regions)

Integrated resorts and hospitality real estate investment in Japan (July 2017)

  • “Opportunities of luxury hospitality real estate with Integrated Resort”

  • “New real estate investment sectors created by Integrated Resort”

Global hospitality investment (July 2017, tentative)

* If interested in speaking at one of our seminars, please feel free to contact us for further information. We welcome suggestions from fund managers, legal & tax specialists, integrated resorts operators, developers, and hospitality specialists.

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About Asterisk Realty & Placement Agency

Asterisk is a private fund placement agency for global alternative in Japan. Through our unique and extensive network of Japanese investors, we support global fund managers in accessing Japanese and Asian institutional investors (pensions, financial institutions, real estate developers, other business companies, etc.).

We provide access and strategies for overseas fund managers to bridge the gap between them and Japanese investors.

Asterisk Inc.,

3-29 Kioicho Gluckheim Suite 2003 , Chiyoda-ku , Tokyo , Japan

Telephone: 03-3263-9909

Email : info@japanplacementagent.com

Website : https://japanplacementagent.com/en/

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