One of the things you will never see in an Institutional Real Estate, Inc. publication or database is manager or fund performance numbers (except, of course, for index numbers).

The reason for this is not that we cannot get access to these numbers. We can. Many managers routinely supply them to other publications and database providers. All we have to do is ask. So why don’t we publish them? Because we cannot certify that any performance numbers we might publish would provide our readers or database subscribers with a means for a fair apples-to-apples comparison. And the reason we cannot guarantee the performance numbers would provide a fair means for comparison between the managers and funds supplying them is standardization. Or should we say, the lack thereof.

First, there is no uniform standardized set of inputs.

At a macro level, there are other issues. Can you fairly compare, for example, the returns report