The Institutional Real Estate Universe tracked the launch of 145 investment funds in the past 12 months, including 11 infrastructure funds — a new fund category for the Universe — compared with 87 new product offerings in 2007. The real estate and infrastructure funds that launched during the past year are targeting more than $127 billion in capital.

According to The Outlook for Private Equity (3Q & 4Q 2008), a report by RREEF, “Private equity fundraising is becoming increasingly more challenging in today’s market. The routing of global public equity markets is causing many investors to be overallocated to private equity while the reduced pace of distributions from their portfolios limits their capability of self-funding commitments.” Changes in the rules and the firms in the financial markets have altered fund-raising capabilities. “Overall needs to conserve liquidity, coupled with a lower outlook on returns, results in investors shying away from pri