Dexus Property Group has questioned the future of its mandate with Axa Australia.
The listed property group's chief investment officer, Craig Mitchell, said the mandate was uncertain due to Axa Asia Pacific's proposed merger with AMP.
"We don't know where that sits in relation to the potential AMP/Axa merger," Mitchell said.
"We will probably have a bit more colour in the next month or so. What we've basically told the market is it is an uncertain time in relation to that mandate."
Dexus is the direct property investment manager for Axa's Wholesale Australian Property Fund.
The uncertain status of the firm's mandate came as the company announced its 2011 half-year results. "DWPS had a very strong 2010 year. It attracted $765 million worth of equity, with all of that equity sourced by the in-house team," Mitchell said.
"We are currently doing equity raising right now because we acquired a portfolio of industrial estates of nearly $240 million in about October last year at a capped rate a year of just over 9 per cent, and now we're doing an equity raising at NTA (net tangible assets) and we are at $245 million to date. So it's all going very well."
He said as well as undertaking an equity raising, Dexus had expanded its funds management business in a bid to capture a new industry trend.
"We see a shift in capital from investors in listed AREITs and putting money into wholesale capital. We also see a shift for larger institutional investors looking for specific investments and we're also seeing a shift with international investors looking to find a real estate home for core investment in Australia," he said.
"We think we are very well positioned for that because we've got such a strong track record of corporate governance and total returns backed by a fully integrated platform."
Earlier this week, Dexus announced the appointment of former Lend Lease executive Penny Ransom as its new head of capital.
Ransom joins the firm next month and will be responsible for managing Dexus's existing third-party mandate relationship and expanding the firm's third-party funds management platform.
