IPD last night presented the 19 winners of its European Property Investment Awards, during the Gala Dinner reception at its annual European Conference. The awards, presented by environmental guru and author Professor Michael Braungart at Frankfurt's Hotel Intercontinental, recognized outperformance over a three-year period to the end of 2011.
Speaking at the awards ceremony in Frankfurt, Ian Cullen, Co-founding Director of IPD, said: "Three of the most difficult years on record for European property markets were the backdrop for last night's IPD European Property Investment Awards.
"The 19 top performing balanced and specialist funds invested across 10 European markets and regions, delivered average total return margins above market levels of over 4% per year throughout this challenging period. They manifestly deserved the awards they received."
Determined by IPD's standardized performance measurement procedures, the awards recognized independently verified investment performance by pension and life funds, pooled funds, property investment companies and other professionally managed real estate portfolios across Europe.
To be eligible for the annual awards, all funds must be measured by IPD's Portfolio Analysis Service, which provides investors with an independent audit of returns against a relevant market or sector benchmark. The awards identified consistently measured real estate investment performance in seven national markets and three European regions across two categories:
- Balanced funds with the highest total return relative to the IPD All Property benchmark annualized over three years to December 2011
- Specialist funds with the highest total return relative to the IPD sector benchmark annualized over three years to December 2011
2011 was another challenging year for investors in European property markets, and although returns remained positive in virtually all countries, by December the Eurozone crisis had taken an increasing toll on property values.
Most markets therefore spent most of the year beset by a climate of uncertainty and ended it with a significantly darker outlook than at the start. In this environment, those fund managers who ranked highly on performance compared to their peers made a highly-valuable contribution to their investors, through a period of considerable headwinds.
The full list of winners is available here.
Source: IPD
