EDITOR'S LETTER

Welcome to the October 2014 issue of PERE magazine. For this edition, we stuck temperature gauges around the world’s markets to bring you our Hot Markets report. From page 38 onwards, you will find the latest analysis of what is happening on the ground in southern Europe, Africa, emerging Asia, China and US secondary cities. Not only that, but we devote entire supplements to Latin America and Australia, so be sure to check those out too. Our thanks go to sponsor LaSalle Investment Management and supporter, UBS Global Real Estate, for The 2014 Guide to Private Real Estate Investing in Latin America, plus the four sponsors of our Australia guide.

In addition, find out what people are saying about Germany, a country that institutional investors have apparently placed at the top of their bucket list of countries to invest in. Turn to page 51 for our Germany Roundtable report, where you will learn that pretty much all skyscrapers in Frankfurt have either been sold, are under offer or are about to come to market, and there is a long line of global capital sources seeking a piece of the action.

The timing for all this is good. Strategy meetings have taken place among big private equity real estate firms houses to help them formulate killer plays for the rest of the year and into next. We await developments with keen interest. Aside from geographic ideas, though, I have a feeling that we will hear about Asia debt as a theme in the not-too-distant future.

Other than that, the hot strategy already apparent is a bit of a misnomer. As evidenced by Rockpoint last month, opportunity fund managers are raising core/ core-plus property vehicles. It totally makes sense from a fees perspective given so many investors are still looking to go with less risky real estate strategies and to hold assets for the long term. And a great example of that is Malaysia’s $187 billion Employees Provident Fund (EPF). In our Blueprint interview on page 27, we talk to that investor and discover it wants up to 10 percent of assets in real estate, but in conservative fashion.

Plus, there is the usual diet of analysis of news developments such as that vote from Scotland and how the US’ largest pension fund expects to deploy $6.6 billion in real estate this fiscal year. Don’t miss out.

All in all, we feel there is a decent package here that reflects the mood in the markets. Next month, by the way, we move on to providing our annual Global Investor 30 ranking, which reveals the institutional investors with the most skin in the game.
Until then, we wish you a successful last quarter and enjoy this issue.

Robin Marriott
Editor, PERE
robin.m@peimedia.com

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