Nick van Ommen Of EPRA

The face of real estate investment is changing in Europe. As GlobeSt.com reported recently, the UK government has given its approval to the creation of a REIT structure there and a working system should be active in 2006. That would bring the total of euro countries with tax-transparent structures to four, including Holland, Belgium and France, and pave the way for additional structures in such countries as Germany and Spain. The European Public Real Estate Association–the European version of NAREIT–has been leading the charge for a unified European REIT structure since its creation in 1999. CEO Nick van Ommen, who came back from retirement (he was a banking executive) to head the fledgling organization–which today represents some 160 listed real estate companies–is cautiously optimistic. While he praises the UK government’s enlightenment, he sees another decade of work ahead before anything close to a unified European structure is a reality. At Mipim, just a week before the UK’s decision, van Ommen sat down for an exclusive interview and discussed the short- and long-term outlook.

GlobeSt.com: How is your membership broken down?

van Ommen: We represent the listed real estate companies in Europe as well as the investors–the pension funds and institutional investors, the investment banks and fund managers. We have 160 organizations in our membership, 90% of which come from Europe. The other 10%, increasingly, comes from the US and from Asia.