Reputational damage will have a significant impact on the ability of some property managers to raise capital in the future, according to a Charter Hall executive.
Damage to reputation has most likely arisen for those property managers who have not adhered to their mandates in the past, Charter Hall direct property chief executive Richard Stacker said.
"Significant reputational damage with a number of players in some of the listed retail space will realistically mean they'll never raise capital in the future," he said.
"That puts their investors in a difficult situation if they are looking to exit and they can't raise new investor funds, so it makes it difficult to source that capital for liquidity.
"If we hadn't been transparent with investors during the global financial crisis, which has been the case for a number of other unlisted managers, there's no way we could have been in the market over the last 18 months raising capital for two new opportunities."
Charter Hall's direct property business has experienced recent success with a combined equity raising of $85 million for two property trusts located in Sydney and Perth.
"For the asset in Perth we've raised over $33 million and have a $40 million target on that. The Macquarie Martin Place Trust raised $52 million and closed oversubscribed to the market," Stacker said.
"So it gives you a feel that with quality property and quality assets you do have an opportunity to raise capital. But without that, and without the reputation in the market, as a manager it's almost impossible."
Meanwhile, CBRE executive director global research and consulting Kevin Stanley said now was an opportune time to invest in the property sector.
"What we're seeing, though, is the volume of transactions is still fairly low because the availability of prime quality property is still quite limited," he said.
"But we are starting to see a pick up in direct investment activity. It has been driven mostly by developers who are selling new buildings."
