BenchMark Fund Estates is a Real Estate Investment Trust for securitization of real estate. On 13 October 2003 the Fund received a license from the Financial Supervision Commission to act as a real estate investment trust.

The registered capital of BenchMark Fund Estates is BGN 500,000, and it reached BGN 650,000 after the compulsory initial capital increase. In May 2005 the second capital increase of the Fund was registered, consequently the capital reached BGN 7,800,000. In February, with the third increase by an IPO of 15,600,000 new shares, the Fund’s capital reached BGN 23,394,706. The BenchMark Fund Estates REIT’s market cap as on the 19th May 2010 is BGN 7,720,253. The number of shareholders as of 31st March 2010 is:

• Institutional investors – more than 60 (pension funds, banks, etc.)
• Individual investors – more than 300

BenchMark Fund Estates` subject of activity according to its Statute is to raise funds by means of issuing securities and to invest the raised funds in real estate and rights pertinent to real estate; construction, improvements and furnishing of real estate with the purpose of managing, renting, leasing and/or selling the real estate. BenchMark Fund Estates can not make other transactions other than the explicitly specified in the preceding sentence and the activities pertinent to their implementation unless they are allowed under the Law on the Special Purpose Vehicles.

The Fund`s statute envisages two main investment goals: to give its shareholders the opportunity to invest in a diversified real estate portfolio by acting on the principle of diversifying the risk for the shareholders; and to assure for its shareholders preservation and increase of the value of their investments by means of achieving a stable income at balanced risk diversification.

The investment strategy of the Fund is based on the principle of receiving current (operating) income from the management of a real estate in the form of rental and/or leasing installments. The principal objective is to structure an “operating income portfolio” by means of balanced diversification of the risk for the shareholders and the creditors, incl. in the cases of changes in the officially fixed rate of the local currency (the Bulgarian Lev) to Euro.

Detailed Information for BenchMark Fund Estates’ investment strategy is included in the three parts of the Fund’s Prospectus for Public Offering of Securities – the Registration Document, the Shares’ Document, and the Summary.