Message from the CEO
Property markets continue to gain momentum
We start the second half of the business year with the property markets continuing to gain momentum, but improving economics is not always enough to ensure confidence.
As we heard from Pippa Malmgren and Jami Miscik, speakers at our last Annual Conference, geopolitical issues have an increasing impact on business, and as our industry becomes more global, we need to expect to be more tied up into those trends.
Five years ago, I don’t think we would have considered events in far off places as having such a direct consequence on our industry but now distance is not a factor, and we also have concerns in our own neighbourhood with the unfolding events in Ukraine. We are likely to look back over 2014 and notice an increasing impact from these trends on our industry’s success.
Changes in Amsterdam
I’m pleased to welcome two new senior members of the staff to the INREV team. Maurits Cammeraat has already begun his role as Director of Professional Standards while Henri Vuong will join as Director of Research and Market Information later in the month. They succeed Lonneke Löwik and Casper Hesp respectively, two long-standing members of staff that have been integral in the development of the Association in the last few years. I would like to thank them for their contribution.
I am sure Maurits and Henri will bring positive change to our work with new insights and new ideas for our research and professional standards activities.
This month we will also be launching the Debt Due Diligence Questionnaire (page 3). The document, designed to help initial discussions between debt fund managers and investors, adds to our suite of questionnaires for traditional funds and funds of funds. It also reflects our commitment to support the growing menu of products in the industry, a continuing theme in our activities.
Finally, I would like to update you on some changes to how our committees interact with our Management Board (MB) as we start to set strategy for 2015. This October, we will hold the first joint MB and Committee Chairs Meeting, which will allow the committees to present their recent activities, seek input and discuss their agendas going forward.
The event will replace our traditional Investor Platform and Committee Day, which usually takes place in the final quarter of the year. In addition, we have decided to open up the committee meetings that take place at the Annual Conference to all those members that wish to join. This will be an opportunity for all of you to better understand the work of our committees.
We think these changes will ensure the best information flow possible across our committees as well as between them and the MB, and also provide a way for members to become more engaged with our work.
