Interview: Mr. Jeremy Stewardson, Executive Director, ANREV

The Asian Association for Investors in Non-listed Real Estate Vehicles (ANREV) is the sister organisation to INREV in Europe. It seeks to generate increased levels of liquidity within the Asian private real estate fund market through promoting greater transparency, accessibility, professionalism and standards of best practice. As a regional body, it strives to provide a platform for the sharing and dissemination on the non-listed real estate fund market.
ANREV now has 57 member companies in eight countries. ANREV’s agenda is driven by the members, in particular the investors, and is focused on improving transparency and accessibility of market information, promoting professionalism and best practices, sharing and spreading knowledge.
The objectives are being achieved through implementing research projects such as the Investment Intentions Asia Survey, an Asian vehicles database as well as through promoting industry standards and sharing best practice through regular events.
ANREV membership is dominated by Institutional Investors and supported by fund managers, investment banks and other real estate market participants.
In January this year, Mr. Jeremy Stewardson was appointed as Executive Director of the Association. He has held various senior positions in the Asian and European commercial real estate markets, since starting with Jones Lang Wootton in Hong Kong in 1978. After 23 years with the international property consultancy in it’s Hong Kong, London, Berlin, Frankfurt and Bangkok offices, he undertook a number of Asian commercial property roles, latterly as Chief Executive of the managers of Champion REIT, Hong Kong’s second largest Trust. Mr. Stewardson is a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
Excerpts of interview:
>>ANREV is a non-profit association of institutional investors in private property funds . It draws it’s membership from Pension Funds , Insurance companies , Sovereign funds and Family offices , their Fund Managers and Service Providers . It is related to INREV in Europe . It’s members get together to transfer industry knowledge and best practice – all this with the aim of improving transparency in the global industry and hence accessibility for further investors .
>>For us , Korea is one of the key Asian markets . Along with Australia , Japan, Hongkong and Singapore , it has become an important pension fund and insurance industry participant . To ensure sustainable investment return levels , the Korean industry is now looking to overseas property markets as well as it’s own , just as the Dutch industry did 25 years ago . By the same token , other global pension and insurance industries are diversifying into the Korean market .
So our role is to contribute to improving communications , understanding and standards in global markets for our members , to facilitate sustainable cross-border investment accessibility .
>>There are 3 legs to our Associations out put . Firstly, Research: we research our industry , the participants , the products , the volumes ,the flows and the issues and feed the analysed results back to our members . We will be launching our on-line database of non-listed property funds in Asia later this year – this database is being developed along the lines of the INREV database in Europe .
Secondly : best practice standards . We promulgate the INREV-produced Guidelines for Fund establishment and management around Asia Pacific , with supplements being produced to reflect different circumstances in the individual markets. We will be providing Implementation Workshops for members next year .
Thirdly : communications . We hold Roundtables, Briefings and Workshops on strategic and technical issues facing our industry in Australia, Japan , Hongkong and Singapore – Korea is being added to this circuit.