Real estate consultancy and services provider CBRE has extended its existing agribusiness service line to Europe.
The division provides advisory, transaction and valuation services for farmland which includes supporting facilities such as processing, storage and manufacturing assets.
According to the firm, outside of Europe the team has facilitated and seen a significant amount of deals involving global institutional investors which have deployed major capital into cropping farmland, permanent tree crops and livestock. These institutional investors are now turning to Europe in order to offer their portfolios a geographic hedge.
'European agriculture is rich and diverse, and there are some fantastic opportunities here for institutional capital to explore. Having 27 offices across Europe, we have been aware for some time of the need for a specialist agribusiness service to be based here in order to provide professional advisory, transaction and valuations to Europe’s large agri-food producers,' said Jack Svoronos, head of CBRE agribusiness.
CBRE said that its European team, which commenced operations as of January 2020, has already experienced significant interest from major food producers of which they have secured mandates in excess of €240 mln.
'There are 106 million hectares of arable farmland in Europe, which is also home to some of the world’s largest farmland operators and food producers,' Svoronos added.
'Just as Asia is dependent on Australia’s ability to produce quality produce, France, Spain, Italy and Portugal are a source of food for 500 million people in Europe and will continue to play a key role offering quality and accessible products. It will precisely be in these countries that, over the next five years, we will see the deployment of significant capital in strategic agricultural assets,' Svoronos concluded.
