The 2020 Nick Tyrrell Research Prize has been awarded to joint authors Jean-Christophe Delfim and Prof. Martin Hoesli, both of the Geneva School of Economics and Management, University of Geneva, for their paper, ‘Real Estate in Mixed-Asset Portfolios for Various Investment Horizons’.

The paper explores the role of real estate in a mixed-asset portfolio for various investment horizons and considers the various ways of gaining exposure to the asset class, i.e. direct real estate, REITs, and non-listed real estate funds, as well as other alternative investments.

Chair
Andrew Smith is Chief Investment Officer at Hearthstone Investments. Following a degree at the University of Birmingham, Andrew’s property career began in 1986 at Pearl Assurance plc in the UK, where he established one of the industry’s first institutional property research teams.  The business subsequently became part of Henderson Global Investors, where he remained until joining Aberdeen Asset Management in 2002 as Head of Investment Strategy. At Aberdeen Andrew fulfilled a variety of fund management roles, ultimately serving as Global Head of Property, with overall responsibility for the company's international investment business. He is currently Chief Investment Officer at Hearthstone Investments, a residential specialist investment manager. He has served on a variety of industry steering groups for organisations such as INREV, the Investment Property Forum, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the Society of Property Researchers, the National Retail Planning Forum, the Bank of England Property Forum and the Investment Property Databank.  He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Property Investment and Finance, and is a regular contributor to conferences and seminars internationally.  Andrew is the current SPR President and a Fellow.

Presenters
Martin Hoesli holds a Ph.D. in Finance and is Professor of real estate and finance at the University of Geneva (Switzerland) and the University of Aberdeen (U.K.).  He has written six books and over 100 scholarly articles in real estate.  He is past president of the International Real Estate Society (IRES) and of the European Real Estate Society (ERES) and a board member of the Swiss Financial Analyst Association (SFAA).  He is a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and of the Weimer School of Advanced Studies in Real Estate and Land Economics.  He has been a visiting scholar at many Universities worldwide and is on the editorial board of many international real estate journals.  He serves on the EPRA research committee.

Jean-Christophe Delfim is an economist at Banque Edmond de Rothschild in Geneva, where he covers the economic situation as well as real estate markets of European countries. He is completing a PhD in Finance at the University of Geneva, where he also obtained degrees in Economics and in Statistics. Jean-Christophe published several research articles in the field of real estate finance and economics in international journals.

Panellists
Thushka Maharaj, Executive Director, JP Morgan
Peter Epping, Senior Managing Director, Investment Management, Hines