Settling the nerves: Where now for UK commercial property a year after Brexit vote?

Retail investors pulled £1.bn from property funds in June 2016

Mike Sheen examines how the sector has weathered the storm since the fallout from last year's EU referendum, and how investor sentiment has altered over the past 12 months.

Open-ended UK commercial property funds made headlines last year for all the wrong reasons when uncertainty surrounding the Brexit referendum led to a raft of high-profile suspensions. Managers struggled to meet large scale redemptions, with retail investors alone pulling £1.8bn from property funds between May and July 2016, prompting the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to launch a regulatory review into fund liquidity management and investor protection. The regulator was critical of managers, providers and depositories for their handling of the liquidity crisis, hitting out at fail...