The China Securities Regulatory Commission publicly solicited opinions on the pilot guidelines for the public offering of infrastructure securities investment funds. Whether it is in public funds, brokerage asset management, the legal profession or the ABS field, the real estate industry has triggered extensive discussions. As the main force participating in the public offering REITs business in the future, many fund companies are currently not only actively looking for projects, but also recruiting troops in the talent market to build business teams. Public offering REITs are gradually approaching.
      A number of public recruitment of public REITs talents

      In the asset management industry, talent is the core. In order to actively deploy REITs business, many fund companies' official websites and some recruitment websites have posted recruitment information for publicly offered REITs talents.


      E Fund has publicly recruited REITs operations managers and REITs investment managers on its official website. The REITs operations manager needs to be responsible for establishing the infrastructure and real estate project operation management framework, systems and procedures, and cooperate with investment managers to participate in the overall investment process, setting and implementation Project operation plan, improve operation efficiency, control operation risk, and cooperate with investment managers and other teams within the company to expand investment and cooperation opportunities in infrastructure and real estate projects. At the same time, China Asset Management also recently posted recruitment information for the post-investment management positions of REITs and product managers of publicly offered REITs. Baoying Fund also publicly looked for the positions and team leaders of the REITs asset securitization business, and Hai Fortis Fund is actively recruiting public offerings. The head of the fund's REITs team, Huabao Fund also has the job requirements of analysts who study infrastructure REITs at home and abroad. Previously, on Liepin.com, there were also two fund companies that released information on recruiting business department heads and business personnel for REITs, and even gave an "olive branch" with a million annual salary, showing that many fund companies have a lot of money for such talents. If you are thirsty for money". In addition, according to a reporter from the China Fund News, the industry is currently paying great attention to the business of publicly offered REITs, and privately seeking suitable talents. If this business does land and develop gradually in the future, the talent gap in the public offering industry will still be high. "Public REITs are a brand-new asset class for fund companies, and they are likely to determine the source of company scale growth in the next 5 or 10 years. Large fund companies have their own scale effects and can bear higher labor costs. In recent years, I have been trying various innovations. In addition to the establishment of fund subsidiaries to participate in a number of new businesses such as equity, large fund companies have set up investment banking departments internally. Therefore, after the supervision of the formal introduction of public offering REITs for comments, large fund companies recruit Talent is also a normal rhythm." A person involved in the public offering of REITs in a fund company said. According to his understanding, the current fund company recruiting public REITs business team adopts a combination of internal and external models. "Some large public equity funds have previously been involved in this type of business by the fund subsidiary team and were directly transferred to the parent company; external private equity real estate funds also have many talents receiving invitations from major fund companies." However, many industry insiders said, Currently in the early stage of recruitment, it is difficult to judge the difficulty of building a business team. "In terms of market capacity, although there were many teams that did ABS and REITs in the past few years, they basically remained in the dimension of product design and issuance. There are fewer people who really understand assets, and they are limited to the infrastructure field. Less. In terms of talent willingness, the fund subsidiary team itself belongs to the parent company, and it is understandable to transfer to the parent company. External talents still have doubts about the future development of public REITs in China, and the country currently has more than 5 years of experience. Relevant personnel have a large choice of space and may have to undergo careful consideration. However, in general, domestic REITs, as an emerging product, have a larger imagination with reference to overseas development, and the willingness to join high-quality talents with innovative ideas It will be bigger.” Analysis of relevant persons in the public REITs business of the above-mentioned fund company.


      The screening of public REITs projects has started. While recruiting talents, the screening of public REITs is also actively promoting. According to an industry insider, it was recently learned from the seller that the screening of public REITs projects has been launched, and large public funds have also begun to participate. It is expected that by the end of the year there will be 10 to 20 REITs foundations initially unveiled. These projects come from construction and communications. And transportation and other industries. The industry expects that the relevant REITs revision policy will also be introduced in the second and third quarters. A person in the product department of a fund company also said that it has recently been learned that the project screening of publicly offered REITs has started, but the final number of projects is still unclear. Previously, the Fund Industry Association held a symposium on infrastructure public offering REITs, inviting representatives of 13 industry institutions including China Asset Management, Harvest Fund, CICC, Taikang Assets, PICC Assets, Tianjin Gaohe Equity Investment Fund, the Investment Department of the Development and Reform Commission and the China Securities Regulatory Commission The heads of relevant departments of the Organization Department and the Bond Department attended the meeting. Some people in the industry speculate that the first batch of publicly offered REITs products may be born from the above-mentioned institutions. A senior executive of a fund subsidiary reported that the fund company where he is currently working is also actively paying attention to publicly offered REITs. However, he has no resource reserves on hand and can only rely on the shareholders-securities companies to find suitable projects. It plans to adopt "shareholders + public funds + The group operation model of "fund subsidiary" promotes public REITs. But he also said that it is currently difficult to find projects with higher yields.
"Many infrastructure ABSs that have been exposed recently, because the issuers are large state-owned enterprises, the financing cost of such enterprises is only 1.7%-1.8%. If the return rate of public REITs is also in this range in the future, it is difficult to be among ordinary investors. Promotion."
       "We are also paying close attention to public offering REITs products, and are communicating with shareholders to actively look for projects, but there is no good breakthrough for the time being. At present, major companies are looking for projects, but the number of high-quality projects is not large, which is still a test for fund companies. Comprehensive strength." According to a fund company executive. The above-mentioned fund company publicly offered REITs business person said that the development of innovative business will indeed accelerate the development of fund company scale in a sense, but it is also a double-edged sword.
"Public placement REITs do not belong to the traditional investment research scope of previous public offering funds, and the threshold for new entry is too high. Small and medium-sized funds do not have a comparative advantage in terms of talent cost investment and acquisition of related assets. Therefore, the initial public placement REITs should be large fund companies and A small number of small and medium-sized fund companies with resource advantages are mostly involved.” Nordisk Fund also analyzed and pointed out that REITs have expanded the investment scope of public funds. At present, public offering products can only invest in standardized products, and there is no public offering with ABS as the main investment target in the market. The emergence of products and REITs has made up for this shortcoming and provided a tool for ordinary investors to enter non-standard fields through public offering products. Although domestic public offering REITs are not allowed to participate in commercial real estate, as the process progresses, it is for the future Commercial real estate has laid the foundation for joining the REITs army.


      There are still some problems with broad prospects. REITs are regarded by the market as a trillion-level market and a new growth point for the mutual fund industry in terms of scale and profits. However, there are still some problems to be overcome in this process. Noord Fund believes that from the current structural design of publicly offered REITs, it is clear that 100% of the equity of the investment project assets will break the current pattern of public equity real debt. It is also one of the directions the country wants to transform. Can it be implemented in a real and effective manner Implementation will require actual business inspections. The selection of high-quality projects and how to solve liquidity problems will be the main problems faced by REITs.


      On the one hand, the current regulations can only invest in infrastructure, and the annual rate of return on infrastructure projects is low. According to overseas market experience, the general dividend rate of return of REITs is between 4% and 6%, and the annualized comprehensive rate of return Between 6%-14%, projects with this rate of return still have certain difficulties in the domestic infrastructure construction side;


       On the other hand, how to solve the problem of exit mechanism and transaction liquidity, otherwise the fund company will need to find counterparties or lack liquidity after listing, which will be a stagnant pool and will greatly restrict the development of REITs. "In general, it is not easy to launch public REITs under the current domestic policy and taxation environment. Just like the introduction of pension FOF, although it has not yet been linked to pension deferred tax, it is always the first step. As one of the main tools for ordinary investors to enter the financial or capital market, public fund products will surely become an important investment tool for economic construction and development in the future." Nord Fund said. The general manager of the equity investment department of a fund company in Shenzhen also believes that REITs are currently in their infancy, and it will take a very long time before large-scale implementation, so the real financing impact brought by the short-term is limited.


      Public offering infrastructure REITs are relatively popular equity instruments in the world. The announcement on April 29 only marked the starting point of China's REITs. However, the relevant project evaluation standards and the most important tax-neutral policy have yet to have clear rules. The maturity of China's REITs will take a very long time to reach the level of the US market. "The most valuable domestic REITs projects are mainly municipal, warehousing and logistics and park projects. The reason is that most of these projects are highly leveraged. Most of the backgrounds are state-owned enterprises and central enterprises. REITs help these enterprises to reduce their leverage and conform to the current national policy guidance. ."


      The above-mentioned people said that the best projects should be those with higher yields in these priority support industries, but there are still some problems in future actual operations, such as the willingness of local governments, etc.; traditional infrastructure projects that can be REITs are mainly highways, Hydropower stations and rail transits, etc., because these projects are mostly national important infrastructures, the specific charging principles must take into account people's livelihood and local government control, and the actual rate of return is low. Therefore, the attractiveness of making REITs may be weak. At the same time, the above-mentioned people also stated that the underlying asset requirements of REITs are very high, especially when it comes to asset ownership that must be more than 3 years of operation and cash flow. At present, there are very few that really meet the requirements, and many institutions are not willing to make very good ones. The item is taken out. "How assets are priced, valued, how ownership is transferred, and how taxes are handled. Many of these details are still unclear." The person said that the development of public REITs will take time.