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Australia has come out of the credit crunch reasonably well: its biggest banks show no danger of collapse, it has been insulated by its heavy concentration of big resource stocks, and its housing finance industry has been built on more stable foundations than that in the US. One area that has taken a hit, though, is the listed real estate market.

Michael Neal has joined Henderson Global Investors as director of property for its £1.2 billion UK Retail Warehouse Fund. He comes from Goodman Property Investors, where he was responsible for the fund management of Goodman’s two retail park funds: the £550 million Goodman UK Retail Parks Trust and the Two Rivers Trust valued at over £200 million. Neal has spent over 14 years within the retail property industry, primarily working in the retail warehouse sector. He has also held positions at Hammerson, Sainsbury’s and Homebase.

Conditions are turning tough in Japanese listed real estate. The Topix Real Estate index dropped 23% from mid-May (its peak so far this year) to the end of August, and the TSE Reit index is down 32.2% year to date.

HDG Mansur has added two funds to its roster. The HDGM International Property Fund is modelled after HDG Mansur’s HSBC Amanah Global Properties Income Fund launched in 2002. This closed-end income fund will invest in a global portfolio of properties initially targeted in markets throughout the US and Europe. Denominated in US dollars, the fund’s core investment strategy will be to invest in single- and multi-tenant properties leased to major corporations with stable or improving credit. The fund will be targeted to high-net-worth individuals and institutions and will aim to raise in excess of $200 million.

Concerns have been mounting in recent months that the liquidity schemes offered by the European Central Bank and the Bank of England are being misused by borrowers and are thwarting the recovery of market-based funding, including the MBS market. Announcements from both central banks in September addressed those concerns but their respective timing – one coming before Lehman Brothers’ collapse and AIG’s rescue and the other afterwards – has resulted in a divergence of policy.

KBC Asset Management UK will launch a Japan fund to take advantage of perceived future growth prospects. The seven-year closed-ended fund will invest principally in office, retail and industrial market sectors in Tokyo, Fukuoka, Osaka, and other big Japanese cities.

Property companies remain wary of derivatives

The chart toppers

The pall that has settled in over most of Europe has weakened the growth outlook for the Nordic region, home to NCC Property Development. The Stockholm-based company is performing well and Peter Wågström, its president, says there is no lack of opportunities. Laurence Neville reports.

Royal Bank of Scotland’s Vesteda Residential Funding II commercial mortgage-backed securitization has shown that there is appetite for high-quality paper from well-known issuers. The €150 million five-year deal, executed in July, is the only externally placed CMBS in Europe this year, according to RBS. The single tranche of AAA-rated bonds was priced at 100 basis points over three-month Euribor.

The future of US mortgage agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is in the hands of politicians. Hours after the $200 billion bailout was announced in early September, Senate Democrats were calling for hearings to analyse the causes of the government-sponsored entities’ (GSE) demise. How the agencies look after the credit crunch abates – if they survive at all – will largely depend on whether the Republicans or Democrats are in charge after the November election.

Euromoney’s fourth annual Real Estate Survey canvassed the opinions of real estate developers, advisors, financial institutions, investors and end-users in 54 countries worldwide.