South Korean pension fund plans $1bn of fresh real estate investment

South Korea’s public pension fund is eyeing real estate opportunities that arise from the coronavirus pandemic, launching a new $1bn listed real estate investment strategy. The National Pension Service has mandated Russell Investments on the initiative, the second time the two have worked together on a real estate strategy. The NPS said its goal was to “take advantage of tactical opportunities, with the majority allocated following periods of market downturns”. “We are excited to further expand our listed real estate capability to capitalise public real estate market opportunities and complement the private real estate portfolio,” said Scott Kim, head of the real estate investment division at NPS. “Not only does this new mandate allow us to efficiently capture the potential price discrepancies between public and private real estate markets going forward, but it will also act as an excellent portfolio diversifier and help improve the overall portfolio risk-adjusted return.” Bruce Eidelson, senior equity portfolio manager at Russell Investments, said: “Successful distribution of Covid-19 vaccines should enable demand for public real estate to recover, particularly for the most impacted property sectors, such as retail, office and lodging. We expect the ever-broadening intra-sector performance dispersion will create a better active management environment which can produce significant return over the benchmark.”   To send feedback, e-mail tim.burke@egi.co.uk or tweet @_tim_burke or @estatesgazette Photo by Jordiferrer, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons