DOF, which is an Australian direct commercial property fund (also known as an unlisted property fund) recently passed the $200 million equity inflow mark and has a current target raising of $220 million.

Zenith’s citation noted: “Zenith has a solid level of conviction in the abilities of Charter Hall, which underpins our faith in the ongoing strategy execution… Of particular note is the willingness of the Fund to co-invest in assets with institutional investors through managements’ institutional pooled funds. This has given DOF access to several high quality real estate opportunities which have typically remained out of reach for most retail investor funds.”

Head of Charter Hall Direct Richard Stacker said: “It is pleasing that the quality of both our strategy and execution is recognised by this leading research house.

“Investor interest in DOF has been strong and we expect to close the equity raising early in 2016. We continue to experience increased interest from self managed super fund (SMSF) trustees in this low yield environment. DOF offers returns of 7.5cpu p.a, with a projected total return, including capital appreciation, of around 10% pa – these are very attractive numbers when 3-year Term Deposits are around 2.65% and the ASX-200 declining during 2015. ”

DOF Fund Manager, Steven Bennett commented: “A realisation amongst investors which we are witnessing is that the trade-off between return and liquidity in an unlisted property fund is better understood – and one that’s clearly worth making.”

Zenith said: “It has a solid conviction in the Fund over the proposed term as a generator of reasonably low volatility income returns with modest capital appreciation.

“As a sector specific office fund, DOF’s portfolio is well diversified by number of tenants (64). The long lease expiry across the portfolio is of particular note, as it is relatively rare to be able to access a portfolio of office assets with such a long WALE.”

DOF’s current property portfolio value as at January 1, 2016 is over $720 million with a long lease profile (Weighted Average Lease Expiry of 9.4 years by income). DOF has solid rental uplifts over the medium-term, which should ensure effective rental growth remains robust across the bulk of the portfolio where tenant incentives are high across most markets.

Charter Hall’s Direct property business was recently awarded the Best Commercial Property Fund Manager by SMSF members at the prestigious CoreData Self-Managed Super Fund (SMSF) Service Provider Awards. The Direct Property business has delivered attractive returns for investors and has been very active over the past five years. The IPD benchmark results showed Charter Hall’s unlisted retail funds and syndicates held five out of the top 10 positions for performance in the 12 months to 30 September 2015.

The post Top Zenith rating for Charter Hall Direct Office Fund (DOF) appeared first on AdviserVoice.