I just returned from two meetings — the Pension Real Estate Association’s Annual Institutional Investor Conference in Chicago, and the Alternative & Direct Investment Securities Association’s Annual Conference and Trade Show in Las Vegas. Both meetings boasted roughly 1,000 registrants in attendance. The ratios between investment managers/service providers and investor types (institutional investors at PREA; RIAs, independent broker-dealers and other private wealth advisers at ADISA) were roughly the same.

One of the biggest issues facing the folks in ADISA land, however, is the entry of what ADISA participants characterize as “institutional” investment managers into the retail distribution space (i.e., the space devoted to serving the interests of individual investors, high-net-worth investors and smaller family offices).

Some traditional players serving this market — companies such as Inland Real Estate Group, Black Creek Group (formerly Dividend Capi