Morgan Stanley slashes US residential business...

Axa Real Estate Investment Managers (Axa Reim) has appointed Alan Patterson to the new role of head of European research and strategy. Based in London, Patterson reports to Kiran Patel, global head of strategy and business development, Axa Reim. In this new role, Patterson will manage the expanding European research and strategy team based in London, Paris, Cologne and Madrid. Patterson joins from UBS Global Asset Management, where he was director of pooled property funds and research. Previously, he was property sector analyst at HSBC Investment Bank.

A shortage of inflation-linked risk has pension funds turning to real estate for opportunities. With demand rife, developers can negotiate favourable terms on inflation swaps. Duncan Wood reports.

Leading UK pub and restaurant group Mitchells & Butlers has been forced to shelve a £4.5 billion real estate joint venture and has been plunged into turmoil following a disastrous series of hedges that cost £274 million. As Liquid Real Estate went to press, the instability had prompted a bidding war for the company.

It has been a whirlwind few years for Limitless, a division of the sprawling Dubai World group. Founded in July 2005 with the express aim of designing and developing the best environmentally sustainable buildings and cities, the agency has already scored some big successes. Elliot Wilson reports.

US property stock research firm Green Street Advisors is poised to expand into Europe. Its current chief executive John Lutzius is likely to move to London in April. Lutzius will relinquish most of his US managerial duties to lead the firm’s expansion.

Financing the cities of the future

Financing the cities of the future

Financing the cities of the future

Financing the cities of the future

Financing the cities of the future

Banco Santander has completed the sale of its Spanish corporate property portfolio through a series of sale-and-leaseback transactions. The deals, executed over seven months, brought more than €4.3 billion into the bank’s coffers, €1.681 billion of which was a capital gain. The sale of the bank’s Madrid headquarters, Boadilla del Monte, to Propinvest was worth €1.9 billion on its own, making it one of the largest deals to be done in Spain.

India’s stock markets might be going to rack and ruin but leading domestic real estate firms are queuing up to sell shares in real estate investment trusts (Reits) in Singapore.

After almost a five-month hiatus the European commercial mortgage-backed securities market is showing signs of life, with a handful of deals being marketed quietly. However, market participants are by no means confident that these deals will herald the market’s resurrection. Dealers have dramatically revised their expectations for 2007 volumes. Instead of the projected €100 million-worth of CMBS, a mere €50 million is hoped for by year-end.

The advent of trades on the Italian and Swiss Investment Property Databank indices has furthered the development of the property derivatives market. This opening up of the market into new jurisdictions is expected to continue, with market experts pointing to the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Spain and Ireland as likely candidates for the next IPD-based trades.

Jon Lekander is the new chief investment officer at Aberdeen Property Investors.

Merrill Lynch has invested $377 million in the Indian real estate market, through the purchase of a 49% share of a portfolio of residential properties. The portfolio is managed by DLF, one of India’s largest developers, and comprises seven mid-income residential projects in Chennai, Bangalore, Kochi and Indore. The deal brings Merrill Lynch’s total investment in the market to $550 million.

Peter Sceats, director, TFS Property.

Market veteran Christopher Casey has joined AIG Global Real Estate in New York as a managing partner and product specialist in the capital markets group.

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Vladimir Pantyushin, chief economist of Renaissance Capital, is joining Jones Lang LaSalle, Russia & CIS, as national director, head of economic and strategic research group.

In a recent interview, Merrill Lynch’s newly anointed chief executive, John Thain, revealed that the financial institution’s risk management system had ceased to function properly during the sub-prime crisis. That comment raised some eyebrows and provoked speculation about the possibility that Merrill’s particular black box might have been switched off.

A Chinese real estate investment trust market appears to have moved a step closer following comments by the general manager of the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

The conversion of Hamburg-based real estate company alstria into a Reit at the beginning of October and its inclusion in a new Deutsche Börse German Reit segment in November heralded a new dawn for the German property market. But despite the big long-term potential of Germany’s position as Europe’s largest property market, observers aren’t expecting a substantial increase in the near future in the number of German Reits – known as G-Reits.

JPMorgan is building its French and Italian real estate structured finance business with a string of new hires, all taken from ABN Amro.

Shaun Stevens, senior product specialist, Fortis Investments

The doom and gloom in the US is in stark contrast to the joy and boom in Russia, where there’s an overwhelmingly bullish tone across all segments of the real estate market. Guy Norton looks at the formula for success employed by two leading Russian developers.

Prudential Property Investment Management has hired two directors for its UK asset management team.