Best Investor Relations: Shortlisted

The Iceberg Alternative Real Estate Fund and feeder funds, the inaugural funds for Reech CBRE Alternative Real Estate, launched in May 2007. From the start investor relations was an imperative for the company.

The necessity of this policy was highlighted during the market turmoil. This made it clear that greater transparency was needed in the hedge fund industry.

The company established a dedicated team of five individuals to make investors their priority and several reporting vehicles, making full use of technology, to which all the funds' investors have access.

Chairman and chief executive Christophe Reech says: "Our belief is that good investor relations is a vital part of a well run investment management house and with the real estate markets turmoil we experienced, it was imperative to ensure investors kept their faith in our product. They soon realised that the fund delivered exactly what we believed it would do: a steady performance, with a low correlation to both the underlying real estate markets and the financial markets."

The emphasis on client relations includes speed of response when a client has a query or problem. This, Reech adds, is a clear sign of whether a company has a client-centric focus. "We pride ourselves in making sure we answer any investor's enquiry within two hours of receipt."

Central to the company's communications is the investor website. Password-protected, the website allows investors 24-hour access to the latest information available on the fund as well as data since launch. Research, data and information on current market conditions as well as investment white papers are also available

Responding to the needs f investors in uncertain markets for more regular information, the company also calculates and distributes weekly estimates of fund performance.

"We have always been flexible in our approach and encouraged client feedback in order to customise our reporting to their requirements. In this way over time our reporting and website has evolved to incorporate data that some of our investors needed for their own internal analysis," says Reech.

The weekly data are confirmed by a monthly performance report, sent by email alongside a statement from the fund administrator. The report provides the official net asset value (NAV) numbers and includes commentaries from both the fund manager and the group risk manager.

With risk high on the agenda for most investors, the company gives access to all investors to the full fund risk report on a monthly basis, accessible via the website.

The report can also be tailored to add any information that is relevant for an investor's particular internal analysis.

The monthly data is supplemented by an annual review of the fund, written by the fund management team, reviewing the past year and identifying possible opportunities and challenges to come. In a similar frame, investors receive a letter from the chairman providing a more global view of the group.

"This letter allows our existing investors to learn the type of strategies we will implement next - enabling them to be the first ones to demonstrate interest in these new funds. Over the past six months we have received quite a lot of feedback on Ucits III products, which has enticed us to work on a Ucits III version of the Iceberg Fund, which should be launched soon," says Reech.

While providing detailed analytics and information is essential, "it is important to have a continual dialogue with investors to give them a chance to express any idea or opinion," says Reech.

"For this reason, we hold a monthly investors' call where the fund and risk managers provide investors with an insight into the latest performance and risk data. Each call is concluded with a question and answer session open to all investors. The Q&A session of the call is completely anonymous as we believe that this helps investors to raise any concern they may have," he adds.

This is backed up by client meetings at least once a year with the company's investor relations team.

The Iceberg Alternative Real Estate Fund has assets under management of $165.3 million and achieved net returns of 60.99% from launch to February 2010.