Legal and General today announced plans to increase REIT exposure in the open-ended L&G UK Property fund.
The £1.2bn fund currently has 80.8% invested directly in properties, but aired its desire to improve liquidity through increased trust exposure in November last year.
Under the new proposal, direct property exposure will be lowered to 45%, with allocations to investment trusts increasing from 4% to 45%. The remaining 10% will be held in cash.
It is hoped that this hybrid approach – which will be voted on at the next shareholder meeting in April – will improve liquidity in the fund.
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Legal and General’s head of UK wholesale James Crossley said: “We believe that these suggested changes to the fund are in the best interest of investors and recommend that they vote in favour.
“As a property sector leader for over 16 years, we are well positioned to continue providing balanced property exposure to investors.”
The fund managed by Michael Barrie and Matt Jarvis is up 54.7% over the past decade, beating the average IA UK Direct Property fund 21.3 percentage points.
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