The Property Income Trust for Charities

  • Investment Manager

The Property Income Trust for Charities (PITCH), launched in 2004 and is managed by Swiss Life Asset Managers UK (formerly Mayfair Capital). The Fund is valued at c. £500m (GAV- as at 30.09.25) with c.900 charities invested in a portfolio of 40 real estate assets.  The Fund retains the charity's stamp duty land tax exemption on all property purchases (currently 5%) and distributes income to investors monthly. PITCH manages the Fund with a strong focus on ESG, alongside formal ethical and e

  • Operates: London
  • Based: London
  • Founded: 2004
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About The Property Income Trust for Charities

The Property Income Trust for Charities (PITCH), launched in 2004 and is managed by Swiss Life Asset Managers UK (formerly Mayfair Capital). The Fund is valued at c. £500m (GAV- as at 30.09.25) with c.900 charities invested in a portfolio of 40 real estate assets.  The Fund retains the charity's stamp duty land tax exemption on all property purchases (currently 5%) and distributes income to investors monthly. PITCH manages the Fund with a strong focus on ESG, alongside formal ethical and environmental policies.

Charities invest in PITCH as part of their wider investment portfolios as the Fund provides:

1. Income- Property is high yielding, relative to other asset classes. 

2. Inflation protection - Property offers diversified, inflation-hedged rental growth. 

3. Impact - Strong focus on ESG with dedicated decarbonisation and social value strategies. 

PITCH has a strong long term performance record that can be viewed via the Charity Intelligence website. Swiss Life Asset Managers UK is part of a pan-European asset management business providing access to a range of asset classes, with a focus on real estate, infrastructure and ESG impact strategies. 

Charity funds offered

Available products and minimum investment by fund type.

Charity pooled fund

£10k

Minimum investment

  • Charity clients900
  • Total assets£500m
  • Advisory
  • Discretionary

Segregated mandate

£50m

Minimum investment

  • Charity clients2
  • Total assets£200m
  • Advisory
  • Discretionary

Investment approach

Philosophy

Please refer to this section of our website - https://www.pitch-fund.co.uk/en/home/the-fund.html

Asset allocation

The Fund’s investment objective is to provide an attractive income return from real estate whilst maintaining capital in real terms over the economic cycle. In order to do this the Fund adopts a thematic investment strategy which focuses on allocating to those areas of the market which deliver:
1. Growth – Industrial & Residential
2. High Income – Retail Warehousing & Grade A offices
3. Inflation protection – Hotels, care homes & supermarkets
Coupled with this, the Fund is taking an increasing active approach to management, utilising shorter leases to capture real rental growth and operating a leaner portfolio which focuses on quality over quantity in terms of assets.
Finally, ESG is becoming increasingly important part of the Funds investment strategy, with increases in regulation around EPC ratings and net-zero targets.

Swiss Life Asset Managers UK, as the manager of PITCH is focused on ensuring the portfolio reflects this emerging “new world” and build the investment strategy around thematic research, combined with forensic economic and market analysis, to create a portfolio that is well placed to maintain tenant demand, protect income and capture market growth. All decisions are made with an ESG overlay to incorporate significant due diligence on both environmental (net zero carbon) and ethical requirements to ensure the Funds’ investments are not in conflict with its underlying charity investors.

Allocation decisions

PITCH invests in property directly to create a pooled Fund for charity investors. We believe this is the best vehicle for charities as the Fund retains their SDLT exception whilst providing them with a portfolio of institutional quality assets and high quality tenants.

Risk management

We have certain set risk parameters set within the trust deed. All investment decisions are monitored by our internal risk committee and the management team meet with the Investors' Committee on a quarterly basis to approve strategy and ensure oversight of the management of the Fund.
The current prevailing restrictions are:
•No one property will amount for more than 10% of the portfolio value at the time of purchase;
• The three largest properties will not exceed 35% of portfolio value;
• Excluding the UK Government (and related bodies) no one tenant will account for more than 10% of portfolio income;
• The Fund does not undertake any speculative development;
• Investments in other property funds are limited to 10% of total assets of the Fund.
• An important measure of risk is the quality of the tenants across the portfolio and PITCH is rated (D&B credit score) within the top 5% of Funds, within the MSCI/AREF All-Balanced Index.

Example performance

Please see our past performance on the PITCH Fund website via this link - www.pitch-fund.co.uk/en/home/facts-and-figures.html

Note: Real estate as an asset class has been through a challenging 2 years post the Liz Truss budget in September 2022. However, the market has now stabilised and the prospects for real estate look attractive (IPF forecasting 8.0% p.a for UK property over the next 5 years). We believe PITCH can outperform the consensus through its careful sector allocation and active asset management.

Charity team

Designated charity team
Yes
Team size
7
Years of experience
115
Location
London
Remote working
Yes full remote working capability

9

We have considerable experience managing property investments on behalf of UK charities and endowments. Our specialist Fund for charities, PITCH was launched in 2004 and has a strong track record of c.20 years in delivering above market returns. In 2022, we launched a Strategic Property Management service for endowments owning direct investment property and currently manage c.£200m on a segregated account basis.

Ethics & ESG

Offers ethical investing
Yes

Whilst PITCH as a pooled Fund cannot adhere to each investor’s individual ethical policy requirements, it does have its own strict policy, which has been in place since the Fund’s inception and with a particular focus on the underlying charitable purpose of its investor base. The policy is reviewed regularly by the Fund’s external Investors’ Committee (IC), which is represented by the funds largest charity investors and has been developed using the basis of the Church of England’s Responsible and Ethical Investment Policy. Due diligence screening of tenants is carried out at the time of any property purchase and is then reviewed on a quarterly basis. This is reported to both the Swiss Life AM UK’s Investment Risk Committee and the PITCH Fund’s external IC, who meet quarterly. The Investors’ Committee continue to monitor the tenants of the property portfolio to ensure that none are involved in any activities which would likely bring the fund into disrepute with its investors or wider stakeholders. The policy includes investment exclusions on tenants from the following banned activities: Pornography, Gambling, Armaments and the manufacture of Alcohol and Tobacco. Investment restrictions on tenants involved in the sale of alcohol or tobacco (the sale of the end-product is allowed up to 25% of a company’s turnover. For example, supermarket retailers that sell alcohol and tobacco are permissible). And other investment restrictions on a case-by-case basis: investments excluded in the past include issues around living wage, corporate governance, animal testing and companies extracting thermal coal or tar sands. In all cases the Fund’s external IC have final say over what is considered an acceptable tenant. For further information please use the link below to our responsible investment page - www.pitch-fund.co.uk/en/home/responsible-investment.html

Fees

Annual management charge
0.5
Transaction
1.25

Fund management Fees are based on - 0.65% of the gross asset value of the Fund for the first £40 million and 0.5% over £40 million calculated monthly and paid quarterly in arrears.
Our current Total Expense Ratio (TER) is 0.71% of Gross Asset Value as at 30.06.2025 - includes: Fund Management fee, Trust Manager’s fee, Investors’
Committee cost, Trustee fee, Administrator, Depository, Valuer, Audit and MSCI membership.

Operations & service

Administration
Apex Group Ltd act as administrators for the Fund register and all subscriptions & redemptions.
Onboarding
Onboarding registered charities is relatively straight forward as information is available on the Charity Commission website. All investors must satisfy standard AML requirements and this is managed by Apex Group on behalf of the PITCH Fund.
Ongoing advice
We are happy to provide regular updates on the PITCH Fund and where we manage segregated accounts this would be on an advisory basis, controlled by an investment management agreement. Please contact the team for further details and fees.

Custody

No

Get in touch with The Property Income Trust for Charities

Send a direct enquiry to The Property Income Trust for Charities. We pass it on through Charity Intelligence so we can follow up and make sure you got a useful response.

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