What's New In Investments, Funds? - Affiliated Development, Ned Davis Research

Editorial Staff

25 November 2020

Affiliated Development
A family office in Florida and a number of pension funds are backing an impact investing fund concentrating on multi-family housing in South and Central Florida. The fund is run by Affiliated Development.

Affiliated Housing Impact Fund, LP will provide equity capital to finance a pipeline of workforce housing projects and investments. Affiliated Development's principals, Jeff Burns and Nick Rojo, will be the sole general partners and managers of the fund, it said in a statement yesterday.

“Over 60 per cent of renters in the South Florida area are cost-burdened, meaning they pay more than 30 per cent of their income on rent. Most South Florida residents are forced to either allocate too much income toward rent, live with one or more roommates, or move away from major employment centers in order to find reasonably priced housing," Burns said.

"The tremendous demand for attainably priced housing in South Florida has been compounded by the influx of new residents and businesses migrating to the area. We feel a sense of responsibility to work alongside local government to help find solutions to this growing issue,” he said.

Affiliated Development specializes in public-private-partnerships.

The fund has the requisite capital commitments for an initial closing which is scheduled for December. Committed investors include a locally-based family office and a number of public sector pension funds representing firefighters and law enforcement professionals.

Ned Davis Research
Florida-based Ned Davis Research has launched its Thematic Opportunities Strategy, designed to beat markets by tapping into big themes centered on technology, demographics and global shocks.

Current theme examples include COVID-19 recovery, clean energy, cloud software, cybersecurity, 5G, fintech and electric vehicles.

NDR reviews trends to find the highest-conviction investment themes, and recommends ideas to asset managers and wealth managers based on NDR's favorite stock, ETF or basket of stocks.

"The Thematic Opportunities Strategy came about organically as a reaction to client feedback," Bashar AL-Rehany, Ned Davis Research chairman, said. "In a recent client survey, over 50 per cent of respondents suggested they were interested in a thematic opportunities strategy from NDR.”

The recommended themes are investible and can be implemented by using NDR's unique concentrated portfolios of 10-15 companies or a thematic exchange traded fund.

Pat Tschosik, senior portfolio strategist at Ned Davis Research, added: "We launched Thematic Opportunities with an initial focus on 'Tech Titans,' giving investors insight on the largest, fastest growing technology companies driving the market, including Apple, Salesforce and Adobe.”

Besides its headquarters in Venice, Florida, NDR has offices in New York, Atlanta, Boston, San Francisco, London and Hong Kong.