Alternative investors including pension funds and insurance companies will play an increasingly significant role in the southern European real estate market, says Pere Viñolas, CEO of Spanish company Inmobiliaria Colonial.

Alternative investors including pension funds and insurance companies will play an increasingly significant role in the southern European real estate market, says Pere Viñolas, CEO of Spanish company Inmobiliaria Colonial.

‘We have only seen isolated examples of alternative forms of investment in the southern markets so far, but this is likely to change over the coming years,’ Viñolas predicts ahead of ULI’s annual conference in February.

‘At the moment alternative investors are concentrating on core markets like London, but their natural strategy will be to expand into Spain and Southern Europe once the markets become more stabilised. The next few years look to be very exciting for Southern European real estate.’

Inmobiliaria Colonial is a leading player in the Spanish property sector with a European portfolio valued at more than €5.3 bn. The company sees numerous opportunities in southern Europe in 2014, says Viñolas.

‘We have seen a dramatic change in sentiment across Southern Europe in the last six months, particularly in our home country of Spain. This has led to a major increase in transaction volumes, where significantly the main driver has been investment from abroad rather than local money. A year ago we were only seeing a very limited number of domestic transactions, but now foreign money is entering the market in a very real way, particularly from opportunistic fund companies,’ he says.

Pere Viñolas will be participating in a panel session entitled ‘Southern Europe - What is Really Happening on the Ground?’ at the ULI Europe Annual Conference on 4-5 February