Business
Real estate
a tale of two cities
Luc Delflorenne/archives
KBL SALE BLOCKED
Commercial real estate is heating up in major European cities. Will Luxembourg office space become overpriced in 2011?
WORKPLACE BULLIES
Three percent of the workforce-10,500 employees--in the Grand Duchy were victims of workplace bullying in 2010, according to the support group Mobbing. Women made up 75% and foreigners 62% of cases. Mobbing estimates bullying cost the health system €26 million in sick leave last year. www.mobbing.lu
KAUPTHING RAIDS
Luxembourg Police executed search warrants on behalf of British and Icelandic prosecutors surrounding the collapse of Kaupthing Bank. UK authorities said “3 business and 2 residential premises” were searched. The Wall Street Journal said this included the offices of Banque Havilland. www.sfo.gov.uk
Employability Research
The University of Luxembourg and the Institut Universitaire International Luxembourg are researching the employability of graduates. The study will measure the benefits of particular degrees and how they affect career entry, with the aim to assess employability for all programmes. www.iuil.lu
David Laurent/Wide
Without specifying why, financial regulator CSSF blocked the sale of Luxembourg-based KBL European Private Bankers to India’s Hinduja. KBL’s Belgian parent must sell the unit to comply with a European Commission ruling. Several Dutch competitors have expressed interest in KBL, which manages €47 billion in assets. www.kbl.lu AMAURY EVRARD and KEES HAGE: some European real estate assets are already overpriced
Office space is becoming overpriced in some prime locations, but slow economic recovery is preventing a real estate bubble from forming in Europe, according to a recent PwC report. The consulting firm also predicts Luxembourg’s commercial real estate market will see limited improvement in the coming months. PwC surveyed more than 600 real estate professionals across Europe and found a growing divide between major metropolitan areas such as Munich, Istanbul and London and smaller cities such as Luxembourg. The large markets are seeing a mass influx of investments, as they are seen as more liquid, says Amaury Evrard, real estate partner at PwC Luxembourg. At the same time, there is increasing disparity between prime locales--central city offices, key high street spaces, established shopping centres--and more peripheral spots which are seen as riskier investments, explains Kees Hage, global real estate leader at PwC, who is based in Luxembourg. Since many investors still have funds allocated to
real estate, Hage says many are chasing the same conservative-profile properties. “The fact is, it’s a big risk that everybody is going after core assets,” he says. “There’s such a big divide between primary and secondary property, that’s why there’s a ticking time bomb for that type of property.” Therefore he reckons “some of those core assets--even more so, some of the trophy assets--might be overpriced ” today. As the Grand Duchy is economically dependent on the slowly rebounding financial sector and the economies of neighbouring countries, Evrard says Luxembourg “is not overpriced ” with vacancy rates hovering around five percent in the city centre and about 20 percent out of Luxembourg city. “I think it’s going to pick up slowly,” this year, he predicts. “Vacancy is probably going to decrease because there are [fewer] projects and developments,” being completed. Yet “effectively there is a delay between stabilisation of the economy and economies AG around Luxembourg.” Download the report at: www.pwc.com/lu/en/real-estate/
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31.03.2011 10:05:54 Uhr