EU Property Investment Up 15% in the First Quarter

13.4 billion euros worth of property investment deals took place in the EU in the first quarter of this year. This represents a 15 per cent increase over the first three months of 2009, according to research from PropertyEU released yesterday.

This shows unequivocally that faith is returning in the international property arena. Sure, this report is on commercial real estate, but growth in the residential sector will almost certainly follow in the areas where these purchases and expansions are taking place.

Malls need staff, malls need shops, new ventures open up and they need staff, not to mention staff to manage the malls. It is a fact that many of these staff will already be in place, but I do not know one mall investor who will not want to have some sort of presence in the higher levels of their new investment’s staff.

Also, the malls and offices wouldn’t be worth investing in if growth and expansion were unlikely in the market. This means expansion of stores and business, which cannot happen without more staff.

Speaking of which, according to the report, the retail sector was by far the best performing, over the office and industrial sectors.

The retail sector, which saw a 5.2 billion euro growth, was boosted, by the 1.3 billion euro purchase of a portfolio of operational shopping centres and shopping centre developments by Dutch investment trust Corio,  from developer-owner Multi Corporation.

Both companies agreed that Corio would acquire four active retail centres in Germany, Spain and Portugal and another retail centre under construction, again, in Germany.

The second most lucrative deal in the first quarter, was the purchase of  Simon Ivanhoe's portfolio of shopping centres in France and Poland, worth about 715 million euro, in February, by Unibail-Rodamco.

According to the website of PropertyEU, the site was established in 2006 to provide insight on financing and investment in the latest important deals in Europe, investors from North America, the UK and elsewhere.

The research follows investment deals exceeding 20 million euro in value, for which the financial details are known.