Internet update

Citation

Almond, N. (2009), "Internet update", Property Management, Vol. 27 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/pm.2009.11327aag.001

Internet update

Article Type: Internet update From: Property Management, Volume 27, Issue 1

As I prepare this article at the beginning of October 2008, the headlines in the press have all been dominated by the stability of the banking sector and the financial services sector as a whole.

For the UK and many other Western Economies, financial services play an important role. Having worked in London, and more recently in Canary Wharf, it is not hard to witness the growth of financial services industry. I remember taking a trip to Docklands in the early 1990s to witness the developments. At that time a visit to Docklands at the weekend meant taking the bus as the DLR did not work. The area itself was a near ghost town. Today is a different story. The Docklands estate has grown significantly with several other towers surrounding 1 Canada Square. Various retail and residential developments have sprung up as a range of banks and other service providers locate in the area.

But what do we know of these industries? For the purpose of this article I propose to keep things simple. I want to look at the growth of the sector to uncover what statistics are available for various segments – including banking, hedge funds, insurance and pension funds. I also want to consider what is available in terms of real estate; and I am thinking here about investments by these industries in the real estate sector.

As with many searches I started with Google (www.google.co.uk). Whilst a useful starting point for uncovering sites I have found he growth of the internet has meant that there is too much information being returned on Google, including old or out-of-date links.

Instead my starting point is a site I came across from an article I read. International Financial Services, London (www.ifsl.org.uk/), an independent organisation representing the financial services sector in the UK. Their web site, in particular the “Reports” section is a little treasure trove of information and data. Taking the “Reports” moves you to a list of various publications; from here you can pick-off details on various sectors. One of the first to investigate is their Guide to Sources of Statistics – 2008 is the latest edition. Click this link and you can access the current and historical source guides back to 2001. The latest 2008 edition is a 20-page report listing web sites on a whole range of industries, including Banking, Insurance, Fund Management, Securities, Derivatives, Islamic Finance and Legal and Accounting Services, to name but a few. I do not propose for this editorial to reproduce or even review many of these sites – I will leave that to you. What I will do is highlight, some times by chance some of the sites listed as I have come across them in my own trawling.

I do not leave the IFSL site just now. There is much more to see on many of these sectors. Running through the list of their reports page, one of the first sectors I stumble on is hedge funds. Established in the 1940s these organisations are relatively secretive and operate more for investing money for the rich and wealthy and have seen significant growth in the last decade. The IFSL report provides some useful data on the sector including their views on growth trend in the sector, the number and type of funds, as well as comparisons between London and New York. Besides the pdf report to download, there is an excel sheet which provides all the data for the charts in the report.

These reports are available for a wide range of industries following a similar style, including Sovereign Wealth Funds, Banking, the Pension Markets, Derivatives and Insurance. The report on pension funds for example looks at the recent growth in the pensions industry, and also compares the value of pensions in various countries relative to their size. There is also a wealth of further sources and links at the back of the report. For each report a datasheet with relevant data is also available similar to the hedge fund report.

In the USA, the Mutual Funds industry is also a significant size. From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_fund) I took one of the source links at the bottom which measures the size of the industry. The Investment Company Institute (www.ici.org/index.html) provides a range of data and statistics on the growth in the value of funds for various fund types, not only in the USA, but also globally.

For the UK Insurance industry, it is worthwhile taking a look at the Association of British Insurers web site (www.abi.org.uk/). Taking the “Facts and Figures” section and selecting “ABI Statistics” will provide you with various data points on the UK insurance market. Some global information is also available from the site.

Of course, this is just part of the story. What about the real estate angle? This is where information is a little more tricky to obtain. In the UK, the best sources of information at Mercer, a provider of HR and financial advice (http://uk.mercer.com). They produce a range of surveys on the industry and you may find some information from their site using the media section; more detailed reports will be available at cost.

Watson Wyatt (www.watsonwyatt.com) are also worth a visit. They produce a range of reports including a “Global 300 Pensions Survey” as well as “Global Alternatives Survey” which are worth reading; and provide some useful information on asset allocation, including real estate.

The IMF too (www.imf.org/External/Pubs/FT/GFSR/2005/02/pdf/chp3.pdf) produced a report several years ago entitled Global Asset Allocation Survey. The link above will take you to the relevant chapter. There is no doubt more information available on the IMF site with a little time and “digging around”.

It is also worth trying to search various news sites; even if through “Google” searching under “Asset Allocation” or “Real Estate Asset Allocation” often springs up some useful links to press articles arising from various professional reports; be prepared to wade through many pages before you come across a useful link or site.

I hope this brief tour has proved useful. I hope to expand on a number of these sectors in future editorials, to provide more depth on individual sectors.

Happy surfing.

AcknowledgementsThe views expressed are those of the author and not those of DTZ.

Nigel AlmondAssociate Director, DTZ, E-mail: dralmond@msn.com