Euro Property articles from February 2007

Euro Property archives from February 2007

Heard in the Eurolounge.
February 5, 2007... An abundance of Northern Europeans The Livingstone brothers have caused confusion in the market by naming their newly listed venture Northern European Properties (see EuroProperty, December 2006). A company called NEP Partners, which...

LaSalle and Morley team up to buy assets for fund.
February 5, 2007... Morley Fund Management and LaSalle Investment Management have bought five assets for their Encore+ fund for 325m at a net initial yield of 5.8%. Deals include a 40,000m2 office building near Stockholm's CBD for 85m, a 10,300m2 Madrid...

Goldman Sachs pioneers property option trades.
February 5, 2007... The first option deal has been secured for the fast-developing European property derivatives market. The deal, arranged by Goldman Sachs, allowed an unnamed non-German institution to bet on the direction of the German commercial property...

Meinl's [euro]1.48bn share issue boosts ranking.
February 5, 2007... Austria's Meinl European Land is launching a 1.48bn share issue that will boost its market capitalisation to almost 6bn, making it continental Europe's third-biggest property firm after Unibail and Rodamco Europe. The proceeds will fund...

Paris spec office for Macquarie.
February 5, 2007... Macquarie Global Property Advisors' MGP Fund II and Generale Continentale Investissements have acquired a 32,000m2 speculative office development in Paris for 113m. The JV bought the Balthazar complex from developer Sogelym Steiner in a...

Trigranit joins Russians.
February 5, 2007... Hungarian developer TriGranit is to roll out a $9bn development programme across Russia in a joint venture with Gazprombank-Invest. Russian company Gazprombank-Invest, which is a unit of the country's state gas monopoly, Gazprom, will help...

District & Urban buys German retail portfolio.
February 5, 2007... London-based investment firm District & Urban has made its debut in Europe with the 134m acquisition of an 89,000m2 portfolio of German retail property. The portfolio, bought from German investor Diamona Holdings, comprises 28 shops across...

RREEF to join Grupo Sil in [euro]320m Portugal vehicle.
February 5, 2007... Deutsche Bank's real estate arm poised to embark on its biggest deal in Portugal RREEF is on the verge of signing a 320m deal in Portugal, its biggest in the country. Deutsche Bank's real estate arm is teaming up with local property...

Delancey's [euro]4bn vehicle eyes European property.
February 5, 2007... Jamie Ritblat's property company, Delancey, is setting its sights on Europe for the first time in 11 years through a new 4bn investment vehicle. Although the fund's main focus of investment will be on Britain, it will buy in France,...

Degi sells Italian offices and buys retail.
February 5, 2007... Degi has spent 265m on Italian retail property after selling 152m of offices. The German fund manager has bought the Franciacorta outlet village in Brescia from a consortium including developers Gruppo Stilo and Craig Realty and Italian...

In brief.
February 5, 2007... Funds buy Paris offices UBS's Euro Value Added Real Estate Fund and Generale Continentale Investissements have purchased the Delalande building in La Defense 6, Paris from French property societies SCI Simidel and SCI Sovigim for 44m. The...

Gennies leaves Deka Immobilien after 18 months.
February 5, 2007... German fund manager is left with 20 of 34 Hannibal portfolio properties after 500m partial sale Former Deka Immobilien chairman Reinhardt Gennies left the fund manager in December, soon after the partial sale of a large German commercial...

Cofinimmo in bid for school PPP deal.
February 5, 2007... Listed Belgian developer Cofinimmo is bidding to partner the Belgian education ministry to build 1.1bn of Flemish schools. Final bids for the public-private partnership (PPP) were submitted last week, with the final decision to be decided...

Pramerica prepares ground for double fund launch.
February 5, 2007... Fund manager investigates availability of investment equity before debut of development vehicle Property Partners Fund and global fund PRECO 4 Pramerica Real Estate is preparing to launch two major property funds. The Property...

Corio to link up with Turkish partner to build 5,000 homes.
February 5, 2007... Dutch investor Corio is close to a major deal in Turkey. It will team up with Turkish developer Garanti Koza to build a shopping mall and 5,000 homes on land outside Istanbul in Esenyurt. Corio is expected to look after the retail side,...

Risanamento sets Paris record with [euro]92m deal.
February 5, 2007... Italian real estate company buys mixed-use building on Champs Elysees Italian listed real estate company Risanamento Europe has bought 118 Champs Elysees for 92m -- setting a new record yield in Paris of 3.9%. The mixed retail and...

Barker leaves Invesco Europe.
February 5, 2007... Guy Barker, chief executive officer of Invesco Real Estate Europe, has been sent on gardening leave until November. Invesco terminated Barker's contracted last October as a result of differences with Invesco's US executives over management...

European investment volume rises by 50% in 2006.
February 5, 2007... Investment volume in European commercial property were up by 50% to $223bn during 2006, according to Cushman & Wakefield. European transactions accounted for 46% of the global total of 491bn, while the US accounted for 39% and Asia 15%....

SCAMP poised to take over Teesland for [pounds sterling]200m.
February 5, 2007... SCAMP chairman Kevin McCabe looks set to succeed in his [pounds sterling]200m bid to buy Teesland, the UK-listed fund manager he floated in 2002. McCabe's SCAMP, a [pounds sterling]1bn joint venture between his family company Scarborough...

Global consultancies reap profits from banner year.
February 5, 2007... JLL, Cushman & Wakefield and DTZ report leap in turnover and profits during2006 as a result of the boom in European investment, occupier and leasing markets Europe's booming markets made 2006 a bumper year for the major global property...

Fund managers to sell off [euro]1.5bn-plus of assets.
February 5, 2007... Union-Investment's 40-asset German portfolio to be offered at 1bn, while Curzon's 51 high street and DIY stores could sell at a price approaching 800m Two German portfolios worth a total of more than 1.5bn are coming to the market. ...

Investors stand on principles.
February 5, 2007... Reacting to investor concerns, INREV has produced seven corporate governance rules for fund managers to follow. But will the rules resolve conflicts of interest and other issues? Almost everybody agrees that there should be a set of rules...

REIT market players to evolve from generalists to specialists.
February 5, 2007... Industry leaders and analysts predict investor demand will drive the break-up of diversified REITs into specialist vehicles that can raise large amounts of capital The first UK REITs are just over a month old, but there is already emerging...

Market faces 'challenge'of rising interest rates.
February 5, 2007... Higher rates may steer investors away from the UK market and lower-yielding properties January's UK interest rate rise could prompt more UK property investors to look to continental Europe if their domestic market cools down. The Bank...

The definition of property is expanding.
February 5, 2007... What is property? A panellist at a recent conference in London described it as a piece of land with a business on it that produces income. Any business will do. I'm sure that this is not a definition that will be appreciated by the purists...

REIT: the next generation is now in the pipeline.
February 5, 2007... Improving REIT rules would facilitate start-ups, especially for residential and unlisted vehicles, and expand their remit We've finally got there! The UK has its first nine REITs and we have every hope that there will be a steady stream of...

Catalyst Capital.(Company overview)
February 5, 2007... Unencumbered by self-imposed sector or regional strategies, generalist investment firm Catalyst simply looks for good deals in good places In an era of sector specialisation, in-house research teams and top-down analysis, Catalyst Capital...

Aareal Bank.
February 5, 2007... Having sold off its non-performing loans and non-core businesses, German bank Aareal is returning to profitability within the property sector In December, German bank Aareal sold Aareal Asset Management to UK fund manager Schroders for...

Open Investments.
February 5, 2007... All-round developer Open Investments, fresh from an $881m share offering, has plans to lead the field in the often treacherous Moscow property development market Development company Open Investments has big aspirations following its $881m...

Hotels nearly booked up.(Company overview)
February 5, 2007... Shortage of quality stock and consolidation are expected to fuel investment boom A shortage of stock and income growth expectations sparked a boom in the hotel investment market in 2006. And hospitality industry restructuring will fuel the...

Hotels.
February 5, 2007... Fund managers are eyeing hotels as the sector grows in strength. But investors still have to deal with a new, non-REIT friendly, type of investment and with a shortage of product Two years ago, German fund manager WestInvest surprised the...

Hotel funds seek acceptance.
February 5, 2007... Invesco looks for "growth potential" with its less recession-prone mid-market sector vehicle Unlike the US, Europe does not have many dedicated hotel funds. An increasing number of investors are buying hotels after seeing yields from...

Are REITs worth the risk?
February 5, 2007... A hotel's profits can be hit by a stock market townturn or a terrorist attack, but in the US, hotel real estate investment trusts have turned in huge returns, and Europe must catch up Gone are the days when European investors would run a...

Key data: INREV.
February 5, 2007... Investors continue to favour non-listed funds Real estate remains most popular destination for investment cash Non-listed funds continue to be the favoured route into real estate, according to INREV's 2007 Real Estate Investment...

Key data: recent deals, macroeconomic data.
February 5, 2007... Belgium and Spain witness large deals Russia, Czech Republic and Poland lead European GDP performance The Fedimmo deal, in which Belgian listed company Fedimmo bought 576m of state assets to launch a new SICAF, was the largest deal in...

Key data: German open-ended funds.
February 5, 2007... New confidence in sector counters 7.4bn outflow during 2006 Degi and Warburg-Henderson launch funds Demand among German investors for shares in the country's open-ended property funds has increased. They realised money inflows of 543.8m...