By Allen Kenney

ING Clarion Real Estate Securities was named Global Real Estate Manager of the Year by an industry publication in December.

Professional Pensions, a U.K. occupational pensions industry publication, awarded ING for its management of U.K. pension schemes.

“Being recognized as Global Real Estate Manager of the Year is indeed an honor,” says T. Ritson Ferguson, chief investment officer and managing director of ING Clarion Real Estate Securities. “We are committed to providing first-class client service and to ensuring consistently superior investment performance. The award recognizes the strength and quality of our people.”

[research] Real Estate Holds Steady in Defined Contribution Plans Photo: Rob Colvin/Getty Images New research illustrates that the popularity of dedicated real estate funds among defined contribution plan sponsors held steady in 2007, while real estate is growing as a component of the rapidly expanding lifecycle fund market. The same survey confirmed the growing use of life cycle funds in defined contribution plans. The proportion of plans offering such funds nearly doubled in 2007, climbing from 46.5 percent in 2006 to 87.5 percent. “Recently, defined contribution plans have been hesitant to add new funds within specific asset class,” says NAREIT Executive Vice President for Research and Investor Outreach Michael Grupe. “Instead, many plans have been adding lifecycle funds. The positive development for the REIT industry is that many of the new lifecycle funds are including real estate among their allocations, generally in the form of REIT funds.” In a survey of 24 fund firms offering lifecycle funds that was published in the September issue of Plan Sponsor, 14 of the firms, or 58 percent, said they included a real estate allocation in their life cycle products. “The growth of asset allocation funds, including target-date funds, is a positive development both for real estate and for the participants in defined contribution plans,” Grupe says. “It demonstrates that providers of such plans are focused on providing their participants with professionally managed investment products that automatically and more effectively allocate employee assets across all major asset classes.”