News & Analysis

Canadian <italic>kama'ainas</italic> 2008-05-01 Staff Writer Canadians hoping to make a clean break from home better not move to Hawaii – the islands are taking in a wave of vacation home buyers from Vancouver, Calgary and other cities several thousands of miles away.<br /> <br /> A

Meet the neighbors 2008-05-01 Staff Writer It's always a good idea to meet the neighbors when you move into a new property. That's especially the case when the home you are developing is set to become the largest single building in London at 131 meters high and sits next to a neighborhood mass of thousands o

Big and influential 2008-05-01 Staff Writer We here at <italic>PERE</italic> are pretty excited, and it's not just because the weather is warming up. You hold in your hands the product of many man hours of work in our quest to determine the largest GPs in the world, and the most influential LPs i

Lighting up Berlin 2008-05-01 Staff Writer The link between Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb, and Pramerica Real Estate Investors is not an obvious one. But after a recent property deal in Berlin, the two are inextricably linked.<br /> <br /> What is today the ewerk building comple

Though investors continue to be enamored with emerging markets, the case studies presented here demonstrate that love can very quickly turn to loss. By Paul Fruchbom

ABP Investments, the asset management arm of the pension fund for Dutch civil servants and educators, is one of the most powerful European LPs in private real estate funds. The pension fund began investing in indirect real estate in 1998 and has approximately €17 billion ($19 billion) invested, which is organized under the alternative investments division. It is an investor in a range of managers including Aberdeen Property Investors, Apollo Real Estate, The Carlyle Group, Heitman, ProLogis, Tishman Speyer, Neinver and Vesteda Groep. Here, Patrick Kanters, managing director of real estate, Europe and Asia-Pacific, explains why operators will outperform allocators, his firm's moves into Asia and why fund managers should stick to what they know best.

The captive real estate development and acquisition arm of the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, Cadillac Fairview had a portfolio valued at approximately C$14.5 billion ($12.8 billion; €9.5 billion) at the end of 2006. Though 80 percent of its property investments are in Canada, the group recently has ventured further afield. In 2006, it acquired a 46 percent stake in Rio De Janeiro-based Multiplan Empreendimentos Imobiliários, the largest regional mall operator in Brazil. The pension fund investor has also been moving into Asia, primarily via investments in private equity real estate funds. Here, Andrea Stephen, the executive vice president for investments, talks about the problems with super-sized funds, what she likes about Brazil, and her interest in South Africa.

Allstate Investments manages more than $125 billion (€96 billion) of assets for its parent company, approximately $18 billion of which is invested in real estate. Edgar Alvarado, a 14-year veteran at Allstate, oversees the group's $1.5 billion private equity real estate portfolio, which has generated a net return of almost 20 percent since its inception in the early 1990s. Today, Alvarado, who recently committed to funds managed by Beacon Capital Partners and The Blackstone Group, is looking to grow Allstate's commitments to the asset class to $1 billion per year. Here, he gives us his take on Blackstone's IPO filing, the market for real estate talent, and the lack of communication in the LP community.

GPs may grab all the headlines—and make all the dollars—but LPs remain the industry's lifeblood. Here, three leading institutional investors give us their take on the most pressing issues facing their community.

At the beginning of the 1990s, Artur Mokrzycki was a project manager for France's state-owned financial institution, Caisse des Dép^ts et Consignations (CDC), where he was involved in €240 million worth of acquisitions in Central Europe's emerging real estate market. A decade later, in 2002, CDC contributed €200 million to a Central European property fund set up by Curzon Global Partners, a subsidiary of IXIS AEW Europe. The fund, PBW I, which is named after the vehicle's target cities of Prague, Budapest and Warsaw, acquired approximately €600 million of core-plus properties. The follow-up fund, PBW II, has recently held a second close on €250 million of commitments. Below, Mokrzycki, who is responsible for both funds, talks about the development of the Polish market, the country's retail sector, and why investors are beating down his door.