Rough Ride Ahead!!

• Opportunity real estate fundraising to sink to lowest level for 4 years.

• Just $16.2 billion has been raised for real estate opportunity funds worldwide in the first half of 2009.

• Much of the negative investor sentiment falls at the door of “legacy real estate funds."

• Even if this figure were to treble in the second half of the year, it would still fall short of the $60.4 billion raised in 2005.

• The total amount of equity raised in 2004 was $24.3 billion, and $11.7 billion in 2003.

• Those investors which are still committing to real estate opportunistic investing are only interested in “distressed plays.

• "Expect an upheaval in the real estate investment industry over the next two years, as more major banks hive off “non-core” components of their businesses."

• "There’s a window of 12-24 months where we will see a reshuffling of the industry, and banks like Citi and others dispose of some of their real estate investment activities."

• The financial crisis has added to the theme for all banks to re-appraise what activities constitutes their core business."

• There will be a “massive reshuffling” among private real estate investment companies, as steep investment losses brought by the market turmoil meant “a lot of businesses are no longer viable under current management”.

• Within the $16.2 billion figure raised in the first half of the year, $7.7 billion was raised for North American strategies as investors sought to capitalise on distressed opportunities in mature markets.

• Fundraising for Asia has been worse hit with just $1.5 billion raised against $21.8 billion recorded by the firm as being raised in 2008.

• $4.7 billion has been raised in the first half for Europe while only $1.6 billion was raised for funds employing global strategies and $0.8 billion for emerging markets outside of Asia.