Real estate investment conference offers insight into future opportunities

Stan Garrun, MD of IPD SA says, "The conference will build on important lessons from the past and look at how to apply these to the future. Real estate markets are continuously changing and speakers will focus on the key trends and opportunities."

Sponsored by Liberty Properties, the conference promotes South African commercial property against other asset classes, both locally and globally.

"Each year we assemble industry leaders to call attention to and debate key issues. With unique access to the group's contacts from around the globe, we're presenting a programme, which gives exclusive access to speakers with unique knowledge."

Speakers offer international, local perspectives

The conference offers property investors information on investment strategies in the local and global markets, the economic landscape, managing risk, sustainability, growth strategies, developing markets, listed and alternative investments.

Bringing their international perspectives to conference goers are IPD UK senior director of business development, Dr Peter Hobbs and Iain Reid, CEO and chief investment officer of Cornerstone Europe.

Local presenters include CEO of Liberty Properties Samuel Ogbu, Professor Francois Viruly of University of Cape Town, head of listed property funds at STANLIB Keillen Ndlovu, analyst Liliane Barnard, Nicola Milne of the Green Building Council of SA, research manager of Broll Property Group Sanett Uys and director of IPD Research South Africa, Jess Cleland.

They are joined by contributing editor to the Financial Mail and Summit TV host, David Williams and vice chancellor of the University of the Free State, Professor Jonathan Jansen.

Professor Viruly, with a panel of property leaders, will take participants through the property process from design and development to managing facilities and income streams.

Property investors seeking to polish their expertise can do so at the interactive masterclass on the Business of Property Business.

Property as an asset class remains high

Samuel Ogbu, CEO of Liberty Properties says, "We are privileged to sponsor this anniversary conference. Property as an asset class is always popular and has a reputation for consistently strong results. Historically, whilst other asset classes have experienced a dip, demand for high quality, property-backed investment has continued. This is never truer than now on the continent where, with African capital markets maturing, there is an ever-increasing popularity of real estate investment on the continent, making the conference theme of looking forward whilst learning from past mistakes very apt. We look forward to an engaging and enlightening conference line up."

South Africa's top-performing property funds will step into the spotlight at the Property Investment Awards dinner, sponsored by Nedbank Corporate.

IPD is a global information business, dedicated to the objective measurement of commercial real estate performance, operating in over 25 countries including most of Europe, the US, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Its indices are the basis for the developing commercial property derivatives market and are one of the most authoritative measures of real estate returns worldwide.

For more information, go to www.ipd.com.