TOP 100 INVESTORS, CITIES & SECTORS: Markets of all colours

PropertyEU is launching a new publication at MIPIM this year: TOP 100 INVESTORS, CITIES & SECTORS. The key goal, explains managing editor Cormac Mac Ruairi, is to add colour, depth and context to the headline figures.

After putting concerns about the viability of the euro currency behind them, the premier league of real estate investors in Europe lifted their game in 2013 and went shopping. They bought more in established capitals and ventured further afield, breathing new life into abandoned markets and entering more peripheral locations for the first time in the hunt for prime and sometimes discounted stock.

Investors who are doing their jobs well should be seeing red as they travel around Europe. Red, explains Hans Vrensen, DTZ’s head of global research in this inaugural edition of Top 100 Investors, Cities & Sectors, indicates ‘hot’ or attractively priced markets as measured by DTZ’s Fair Value Index. In terms of offices covered by the 2014 Index, the red markets are Bucharest, Dublin, Madrid, Manchester, and Milan. Little surprise, then, that the transaction data for 2013 shows AXA Real Estate acquired two office buildings in Milan during 2013 at a tantalising 10.5% yield.

Sovereign wealth money from Qatar also visited the northern Italian city to take a chunk out of the massive office-led Porto Nouva development. London and Paris, in contrast, have become ‘cold’ or less attractive precisely because the weight of investment - such as Kuwait’s €2 bn acquisition of the More London scheme - has compressed yields.

The UK and French capitals are also distinctly chilly in terms of retail property, while most of the rest of the European map is red in terms of both retail and industrial property.

Several years ago PropertyEU Research set itself the task of bringing together a wide range of data sources to provide an overview of the top investors in European real estate. In 2011, we added CityLeaders, with information on investment and development in 100 European locations, to our toolbox. In 2014, we are proud to bring our Top 100 Investors and our focus on cities and sectors together and add DTZ’s Fair Value Index, city and country investment volume data from Real Capital Analytics, and demographic and purchasing power data from Multi Corporation.

In search of the most active investors in Europe
All the elements together provide a map to answer key questions facing the real estate industry today: who are the most active players in terms of property investment and disposals; what assets are the most sought after and where are they located. And, even more fundamentally, which markets are still ‘red’ and ‘hot’ and which markets require being wrapped up against the ‘blue’ cold to find a bargain.

Top 100 Investors, Cities & Sectors is the result of our ongoing research to identify who’s investing in what, where, why and how in the European real estate world. Our main source is our own database of direct European real estate transactions, which is updated on a daily basis by our PropertyEU Research team.

For this publication, we have also drawn on data provided by responses to our Top Investors survey held in January/February this year. Leading investors in Europe were asked for their acquisition and disposal volumes for 2013 and key transactions over the past 12 months. Additional transaction data was obtained from reports published by the major real estate advisers. The selection of cities is based on the categories outlined in our City Leaders publication and website. Encouraged by the success of our previous Top 100 Investors publication launched at EXPO REAL in October 2013, we have added additional data sources to provide a comprehensive picture in terms of overall investment volumes, prime yields, macroeconomic developments and demographic figures. We are particularly grateful to our content partners, Real Capital Analytics, DTZ and Multi Development, for providing data on total volumes per country and per city (RCA), sentiment in specific cities (DTZ’s Fair Value Index) and demographic and GDP forecasts (Multi Development).

CORMAC MAC RUAIRI
Managing Editor Top 100 Investors, Cities & Sectors

The total overview of the cities and sectors in which Europe's leading investors were active last year plus a ranking of the Most Active Investors in Europe is available in our new publication TOP 100 INVESTORS, CITIES & SECTORS. The publication will be available at MIPIM next week where hostesses will be handing them out at the entrance of the Palais des Festivals. Alternatively, visit our booth at the Frankfurt stand at the Riviera hall R33.07 to pick up your own copy and speak to our team.

Premium subscribers can click on the following link to read http://www.propertyeu.info/products/monthly-magazine/latest-edition/default.asp?guid=0f0b258aca4e445aa3b0084be7d36e99 [/lin