CBRE Global Investors topping PropertyEU's Top 100 Investors ranking for 2016 is not a major surprise as the investment manager was the runner-up the year before and was again very active in Europe last year.

Similarly, the next four players in the top 5 - Swiss Life Asset Managers, Patrizia Immobilien, Merlin Properties and Savills Investment Management – have been growing their activities for several years.

Yet, PropertyEU's Top 100 Investors ranking, now in its fourth year, tells a number of wider, inter-connected stories emerging from the analysis of the deals and dealmakers in 2016.

Brexit Britain
One of these stories charts how the European real estate investment landscape changed in 2016 compared to the previous 12 months. During a bumper 2015 an increasingly confident investment community deployed a record €300-plus bn in European real estate.

Our data partner Real Capital Analytics (RCA) notes that the following 12 months formed a very different environment. Overall European investment volumes, according to RCA, came to €265 bn. The UK tumbled the most, down some 40% year-on-year to about €58 bn. This allowed Germany, despite its own 19% investment drop, to claim the mantle of the most active market in Europe with total transaction volume of €59 bn. France was down 21%.

The US election and the EU referendum in the UK muddied the waters in 2016 and introduced a large measure of uncertainty, particularly in the UK, which is traditionally Europe's largest market.

The uncertainty helped create a split between the UK performance and the rest of Europe for at least the first nine months of the year. The final quarter, however, saw investors taking a more sanguine view as activity came to €85 bn, the third-best quarter in the last 10 years. RCA's Tom Leahy said.

UK volumes peaked in 2015
Clearly the EU referendum was the main catalyst for the substantial slowdown in London and, by extension, the rest of the UK. In its analysis in PropertyEU's latest ranking of Top 100 Investors, RCA also nuances the plot line of Brexit as the bad guy.

RCA writes that there were signs the cycle in the UK was beginning to run out of steam in 2015, before the real campaigning for the referendum started and the likelihood of a leave vote entered the consciousness of the most hardened members of the liberal elite. Anecdotally, there were fewer bidders on Central London assets and RCA saw volumes peak and then plateau from the middle of 2015, before falling sharply from Q1 through to Q4 2016.

Several smaller real estate markets, by contrast, attracted increasing capital flows from both domestic and international investors in 2016: Spain, revelling in its status as a ‘recovered market’, saw a 36% y-o-y increase to €15.5 bn; Finland spiked 56% to €6.3 bn; Ireland’s volumes were up 21% at €5.5 bn and the Netherlands booked a 14% y-o-y increase to match Spain’s volume of €15.5 bn.

Top 100 ranking
The more volatile market conditions in 2016 filter through to our transaction ranking, and the sub-rankings of top buyers and vendors, resulting in lower volumes all round. Inter-regional inflows into Europe also slowed markedly, with smaller and less active flows from North America the most obvious plot twist.

The US and Canadian contingent in PropertyEU's Top 100 Investors ranking for 2016 is smaller and less active than in 2015, with 24 US and three Canadian-based investment platforms buying just €29 bn and selling €28 bn of assets. This compares with 27 US and five Canadian investment managers which collectively bought €59 bn of assets and sold €44 bn of assets in 2015. The band of 70 European investment managers in the Top 100 for 2016 deployed €94 bn and divested €65 bn of assets.

Thanks to additional support from RCA, this year we provide our usual ranking of the Top 100 investment platforms by transaction volume, and add an additional story: transaction data and profiles of the 250 most active traders in Europe in 2016.

This year's edition of PropertyEU's Top 100 Investors also provides other positive stories. RCA underscores, for instance, that real estate is a resilient asset class. RCA's Leahy put it this way: 'In this uncertain environment, some of the defensive qualities of real estate are a real positive to multi-asset investors. But perhaps more importantly, the market is not overstretched in terms of development or financing, and this is the major difference between now and 2007.'

Cormac Mac Ruairi
Deals Editor

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PropertyEU's ranking of Top 100 Investors is based on total transaction activity in 2016 including investment and disposals. The data is collected via a survey by PropertyEU and supplemented by data on the top buyers and vendors from RCA. The Top 100 Investors, Deal and Dealmakers publication will be sent to PropertyEU subscribers. A limited number of additional copies are available during the Mipim international real estate fair in Cannes in mid-March. 

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