Property Specialist Eyes Distressed Opportunities

Co-founded by managing director Russell Platt in 2002, Forum, a London-based real estate specialist, is seeking a new investor base of global pension funds and the global rich, particularly the super-wealthy in Asia.

Forum, with $6bn of assets under management, charges an asset management fee of 1-1.5 per cent plus 20 per cent of profits – a cost structure that is coming under increasing pressure as institutional investors question the value such managers provide.

“There are legitimate grievances that the pension fund industry has about fee structures and we’re attuned to those,” says Mr Platt.

What value does Forum provide? The group is an independent global real estate investment management and corporate finance group with 60 people spread across its offices in London, the US (Santa Fe and Greenwich), Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing, Singapore and Mumbai.

Despite being a real estate investor, Forum does not buy property. “What some folks do is buy buildings. What we try to do is buy real estate operating companies,” says Mr Platt.

Forum is used to dealing with very large investors. TIAA-Cref, the US investment fund and annuity operation, agreed to back Forum’s first Asian fund launched in 2004. “We owe our existence to their early sponsorship,” says Mr Platt.

It also counts the large Dutch schemes, ABP and PGGM, among its current clients, and provides “white label” property strategies for a number of large fund managers.

Looking to the future, Forum has no immediate plans to launch any new funds. “A fund comes with a lot of benefits,” says Mr Platt, “but it comes with a lot of restrictions too.” The most onerous, he adds, is the specific time window in which to make investments.

As a way around this, Forum is seeking new investment partners to form investment “clubs”, with a specific focus on European distressed property assets.