The Australian Direct Property Investment Association (ADPIA) has appointed Geoff Gedge to the newly-created role of chief executive, following strategic growth plans to enhance key industry relationships.
Gedge, who has previously worked in the financial services sector as a fund manager and corporate trustee, will be responsible for actively engaging regulatory and industry decision makers as well as seeking to more closely align with professional groups, such as the FPA and superannuation bodies.
ADPIA created the role to ensure the industry was able to capitalise on the current opportunities in the market and ensure investors' and fund managers' interests were aligned, ADPIA president Robert Olde said.
"The direct property industry is recovering well from the GFC (global financial crisis), with many funds now reporting strong inflows and resuming distributions and redemptions," Olde said.
"What the GFC has shown us, however, is that much of the regulations and rules designed to protect investors and put in place by the corporate regulators were ineffective when the crisis took hold.
"We also know that the wide-scale freezing of funds shook investor confidence and created problems for many advisers. While we maintain that the freezing of funds was the most prudent measure to preserve investor capital, we recognise that rebuilding these relationships is a vital step in the overall development of our industry."
He said issues on the agenda for ADPIA this year included pursuing the abolition of stamp duty, reforms to the goods and services tax, the taxation of funds and the current proposed ASIC reforms for net tangible asset support, whereby fund managers are to be given stricter capital adequacy requirements.
