In the rapidly expanding European investment market, international brokers are increasingly becoming high-quality service providers for complex mega deals. In that context, the big European real estate agencies are finding merchant bankers encroaching on their territory. There is also a growing role for specialised boutique advisers for some of the biggest deals.

In the rapidly expanding European investment market, international brokers are increasingly becoming high-quality service providers for complex mega deals. In that context, the big European real estate agencies are finding merchant bankers encroaching on their territory. There is also a growing role for specialised boutique advisers for some of the biggest deals.

These are some of the findings which emerge from an analysis of PropertyEU's European investment database. One aspect which stands out is just how limited transparency actually is when it comes to uncovering who is involved in the big European property investment deals. Since 1 January this year, PropertyEU has registered 567 investment deals worth over EUR 50 mln. But the identity of the vendor or the firm advising the buyer was only made public in 152 of the transactions. In the other 400-odd deals, no adviser was named. Even if you assume that some deals do not employ a real estate broker, it is still a low score.

The full article appears in the October issue of Property EU Magazine.