PropertyOct 8 2015

Ian McBryde to leave F&C Reit after 10 years

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Ian McBryde to leave F&C Reit after 10 years

Ian McBryde, the veteran fund manager who runs the £233m F&C UK Real Estate Investment Trust, has announced his intention to retire in 2016.

Mr McBryde has already spent 10 years running the investment trust, which has seen significant growth over the past year in terms of AUM.

Quentin Spicer, chairman of the Reit, announced to the stock market that Mr McBryde will hand over the reins to Peter Lowe, who will become lead fund manager of the Reit with effect from the end of 2015 to ensure a smooth handover of responsibilities.

Mr Lowe will join BMO Real Estate Partners, the company’s investment manager, from DTZ Investors where he has worked for the past nine years as fund manager on a number of mandates, such as Pearl Assurance, University Superannuation Fund and Imperial Tobacco Pension Fund.

Latest results for the trust show that its market cap increased from £194m as at 30 June 2014 to £233m as at 30 June 2015.

The company’s NAV total return for the year was 22.7 per cent and the share price total return was 24.9 per cent. The shares were trading at a premium to NAV of 2.6 per cent at the year end, and by 30 September, it had paid out four interim dividends of 1.25p per share over the year.

Adviser view

Martin Stewart, director for London-based London Money, said: “In my view, if you said ‘Reits’ to the average consumer it would not figure on the majority of people’s investment radar.

“That could be down to a combination of ignorance, apathy and poor marketing on the part of the industry about this investment product. However, we have found that more and more investors are looking at direct buy-to-let investment for their property exposure.”