ZURICH, Dec 12 (Reuters) - Swiss bank UBS said on Friday it had frozen a $6 billion real estate fund as it could not keep up with redemption requests from wealth management clients.
The Jersey-based UBS Wealth Management Global Property Fund will be closed until the end of 2009. "Due to the strained liquidity situation in the market as a whole and the longer process for selling real estate, the fund can no longer handle all redemption requests without forcing remaining investors to suffer losses from emergency sales," a spokeswoman for UBS said, confirming a report in Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung.
"In such a situation it is a fund manager's responsibility to temporarily suspend the fund in the best interest for all investors," she said.
UBS, Switzerland's biggest bank, reported 49 billion Swiss franc ($41.38 billion) of client money outflows in the third quarter but said subsequently the pace of outflows has slowed.
The fund was closed to retail investors but offered to wealth management clients with assets under management starting from as little as 100,000 Swiss francs, the Swiss newspaper reported.
Investors who had a wealth management investment mandate would typically invest between 2 and 7 percent of their assets in the fund. ($1=1.184 Swiss Franc) (Reporting by Lisa Jucca; Editing by Greg Mahlich)