Ignis launches £2.6 billion real estate business

• Ignis Asset Management launches business unit managing £2.6 billion of assets
• New unit to include raft of new hires, including a key Head of Research position
• Unit to build on existing growth – £800m of net inflows into existing Ignis property funds in 2010

Ignis Asset Management has launched a standalone real estate business with £2.6 billion of assets under management in order to build on a sustained period of outperformance and strong asset growth.
The new and strengthened business unit, Ignis Real Estate, will look to maintain and drive momentum following a 10-month period in which Ignis has attracted more than £800m of net assets into its existing property funds. The unit, to be headed by Managing Director Gary Hutcheson, who reports to Chris Samuel, CEO, has already made a number of external appointments in order to deliver further outperformance and asset growth.

Alan Gardner joins Ignis Real Estate as Head of Research. Alan, has more than 12 years’ experience, and will be responsible for undertaking specific market and subsector analysis and will be instrumental in helping to deliver a broad market strategy in support of the wider Real Estate investment team. Alan joins from Jones Lang LaSalle, where he was Associate Director and Head of Forecasting Services. Alan has also worked for Gerald Eve Chartered Surveyors & Property Consultants and spent almost five years working as a performance analyst for IPD (Investment Property Databank).
Daniel Baynes and Chris Brydie are joining Ignis as Real Estate Asset Managers. Daniel and Chris will be responsible for the day-to-day management of a portfolio of assets within the UK Commercial Property Trust and Ignis UK Property Fund respectively. Daniel and Chris have almost 30 years’ of property experience between them.
Other senior appointments within Ignis’ new Real Estate business include Steven Beveridge who has been appointed to the new role of Chief Operating Officer and Robert Boag who has been promoted as Senior Investment Director.
The enlarged and widened Ignis Real Estate team will total more than 30 people, providing a solid platform for future business growth and continued outperformance. Ignis Real Estate will be adding further resource to its asset management, research, marketing and business support teams and will announce these appointments in due course.
Chris Samuel, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Ignis Asset Mangement, says:
“The Ignis Real Estate team has made excellent progress in recent years. In order to grow our assets under management and to maintain our consistently high performance expectations we have worked hard to attract the best possible people to our business.
“We seek to extract the maximum value from the assets we manage and having a well resourced and highly experienced team that can focus on achieving the best possible returns for our investors is essential. We are extremely pleased to announce such a significant development and look forward to the continued growth of our business.”
Gary Hutcheson, Managing Director, Ignis Real Estate says:
“Since late 2005 assets under management at Ignis Real Estate have increased approximately fivefold. The formation of the business unit within Ignis Asset Management marks another milestone in the transformation of real estate as an asset class within the wider Ignis business. Most importantly, the new business unit provides the real estate team with a degree of ownership of and responsibility for the growth of the real estate business.”