“EPRA meeting opens in Paris at key moment for listed property”.
Some 300 European listed real estate executives gather in Paris today at the annual conference of the European Public Real Estate association. EPRA has just opened a Hong Kong office to promote the sector in Asia-Pacific, and CEO Philip Charls says European quoted property is at a key moment in its development.
“We are investing widely to promote the European listed sector,” Charls told PIE. “It’s a most exciting time for EPRA, with new people coming into the industry, a new impetus to business and a new office in Hong Kong from which we aim to spread the quoted property message widely across a very receptive investor community in Asia-Pacific.”
The EPRA conference program kicks off Thursday with economic analysis from leading economits Ian Davidson and Andrea Boltho, followed by a closed-door session including top investors from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Ivanhoe Cambridge – a unit of Quebec’s largest pension fund – and two Chinese state-owned institutions. CEOs of Europe’s largest listed group, the French-Dutch mall group Unibail-Rodamco, Dutch retail investor Corio, and Ventas are grilled by BBC Moderator Alice Baxter and JP Morgan’s Harm Meijer after which EPRA President Patrick Kanters, CIO of Dutch pension fund manager APG, presents a recent investor survey commissioned by EPRA. Pablo de Cesare CEO of French department store chain Printemp, just sold to Qatar, explains its future strategy.
Friday features a discussion of the French REIT/SIIC sector with senior executives Serge Grzybowski CEO of Icade – in the process of merging with industry peer Silic – Maryse Aulagnon, founder and co-CEO of Affine, and investor in French and Belgian office, as well as Geoffroy Schmitt from PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Olivier Mesmin from Baker & McKenzie, one of France’s leading real estate lawyers. Also featured in the afternoon are analyses on innovations for growth by top executives including David Sleath of the UK’s Segro, and Mark Allan of Britain’s Unite group.
Source : Allan Saunderson, PIE