Europe's Recovery Attracts Asian Investors

AMSTERDAM-Strong interest is being seen from Asian and Middle Eastern investors in European retail property, says Pieter Hendrikse, CEO, ING Real Estate Investment Management, Europe. The group has launched a European Shopping Centre Fund to meet this and other institutional demand.

“While, during the boom years of European real estate, largely European institutions were active to diversify domestic real estate portfolios cross-border and move from direct holdings to indirect funds, now it is encouraging to see Koreans, Chinese and Malaysian investors…seeking to place capital in the European retail segment,” Hendrikse says. Target assets for the new fund will be shopping centers dominant in local markets in continental Europe to benefit from the economic recovery that is slowly picking up momentum. “We believe that there are sufficient investment opportunities to support the core-plus targeted returns of the new closed-end fund in the range of 11% to 13% for its seven-year lifetime,” he says.