S&P places ING property funds ‘on hold’
Ratings house Standard & Poor’s (S&P)has placed the Advance and ING Wholesale Global Property Funds 'on hold' following yesterday’s announcement that they were the subject of a sales transaction.
The ratings house said the ING Group announcement that it had agreed to sell the majority of its ING Real Estate Investment Management business to the CB Richard Ellis Group had prompted the ratings decision in circumstances where senior members of the CB Richard Ellis global real estate securities team would be joining the ING global real estate securities team.
S&P noted that the sale of the funds was consistent with ING’s objectives of reducing its exposure to real estate and its requirement to separate its banking/insurance and investment manager operations by the end of 2013.
Commenting on the move, S&P analyst Nathan Bode said the ING transaction represented a significant development that affected both funds.
“As such, we have placed our ratings of these funds 'on hold' pending further clarification of the situation,” he said.
He said S&P would be meeting with members of both investment teams over the next few weeks and intended to resolve the 'on hold' rating as soon as possible.
AUTHOR
Mike Taylor
Recommended for you
Investment manager Woodbridge Capital has appointed Ben Evans as executive director, origination, joining the firm from Metrics Credit Partners.
Revolution Asset Management has listed its Private Credit Income Trust on the ASX today, offering retail access to Australian and New Zealand private credit.
Northern Trust Asset Management has appointed Anwiti Bahuguna as global co-chief investment officer to succeed Michael Hunstad, who was recently named president of the firm.
Three managed investment schemes have received interim stop orders from ASIC following its private credit review, including two run by La Trobe Financial Asset Management.
