UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Penn State Smeal College of Business Institute for Real Estate Studies will hold a panel discussion on a major shift in real estate investments from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Oct. 21 in 125 Business Building.
“The ‘New’ Real Estate Sector: Implications and Opportunities” kicks off the fall meeting of the Institute for Real Estate Studies, planned for Oct. 21-23.
On Aug. 31, the S&P Dow Jones Indices and Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI), the first global market indexes, moved stock-exchange listed Equity Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and other listed real estate companies from the Financials Sector of their Global Industry Classification Standard (GCIS) to a new Real Estate Sector.
GICS is the industry classification methodology that both companies rely on for their proprietary stock market indices and it serves as one of the primary classification systems for equities for investors around the world.
The Real Estate Sector is the first new headline sector added since 1999. The change reflects the growth in size of real estate, primarily Equity REITs. Over the past 25 years, the total equity market capitalization of listed U.S. Equity REITs has grown from $9 billion to more than $1 trillion.
A panel of experts, all Penn State alumni, will examine what has happened since the change and what might take place moving forward. The panelists include:
-- Richard Sokolov (Class of 1971), Simon Property Group — A member of the IRES Advisory Board, Sokolov is president and COO of Simon, a global leader in retail real estate ownership, management, and development, and an S&P 100 company. In August 1996, Simon Property Group merged with DeBartolo Realty Corporation. Prior to the merger, Sokolov had served as CEO, president and director of DeBartolo.
-- Matthew Hopkins (Class of 2000), Eastdil Secured — Hopkins is a director with Eastdil Secured/Wells Fargo Securities Real Estate Investment Banking Group. Hopkins has successfully completed more than $10 billion of strategic transactions for both public REITs and private operating companies constituting mergers and acquisitions advisory assignments, asset and portfolio sales, and joint ventures.
-- Diane Wade (Class of 1990), CBRE Clarion Securities — Wade is a senior analyst and a member of CBRE Clarion Securities’ Americas research team. She is responsible for the evaluation of public real estate companies within the U.S. retail, apartment and net lease property sectors, and Canada.
“The creation of the new real estate sector has significant implications for investors as the sectors are instrumental in modern asset allocation models” said IRES Director and Smeal Professor of Real Estate Brent Ambrose, “and we are fortunate at Penn State to have alumni in high profile leadership positions within the real estate industry that are willing to share their perceptions of the implications and opportunities about this new sector with our students and alumni.”
Following the panel discussion, students, alumni and the public are invited to an ice cream social from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. on the Third Floor Terrace of the Business Building.