Ongoing economic gloom helped depress investment in October, traditionally the start of the busiest quarter of the year, PropertyEU's analysis of the deal flow in October shows.
Ongoing economic gloom helped depress investment in October, traditionally the start of the busiest quarter of the year, PropertyEU's analysis of the deal flow in October shows.
The largest deal tracked by PropertyEU Research during the period saw TIAA-CREF signing a preliminary agreement to buy the PEP shopping centre in Munich. The US teachers’ pension fund manager is reportedly paying about EUR 400 mln, which would make it the third-largest recorded retail property deal in Germany this year.
Interestingly, inter-regional investors were involved in two more of the top five retail deals in the German market this year. The largest was US private equity giant Cerberus buying a portfolio of cash-and-carry stores from retailer Metro for €1 bn. In the other top-5 deal, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board took a 50% stake in Centro Oberhausen for EUR 270 mln.
The deal is noteworthy on several counts, not least of which that it occurred in an otherwise lacklustre start to the fourth quarter. PropertyEU Research tracked just EUR 4.5 bn of large* property transactions in October, down from EUR 7 bn the previous month and EUR 6 bn in October 2010.
Prior to the outbreak of the sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone, brokers and investors had forecast a strong pick-up of investment at the end of the year, which is traditionally a high-volume period. The ongoing economic gloom and threatened eurozone meltdown have largely put an end to such lofty hopes.
The full Deal Analysis article and our list of top-50 deals appears in the December edition of PropertyEU Magazine. Click on the link below to subscribe.
