‘I think we have passed the wait-and-see point,’ Buck said. ‘Here at Expo, I’m seeing more optimism than pessimism as I walk around. Repricing is over in the core markets and in Europe’s secondary markets, people are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.’

Clarion Partners Europe invests across the spectrum of logistics sub-sectors, and Buck said that the ‘big logistics story’ had been evident on the occupational side, with tenant demand ‘slowing drastically post-Covid’.

Turning to the current environment, he noted: ‘Tenants are still taking longer to make decisions, and there has been a real spike in vacancy rates in some markets, such as Madrid and Lille.’ He said that vacancies in these markets had reached such a level as to inspire ‘incentives to increase and some negative rental growth’. However, in the ‘healthy, core prime markets, we are still seeing rental growth’.

Buck acknowledged that there were a range of factors influencing the outlook including geopolitical storms. ‘The last five or so years have been typified by a number of black swan, exogenous events,’ he added, identifying key themes around the world including ‘protectionism, conflict, uncertainty’. He added: ‘It’s definitely something we think about. You can’t exactly underwrite it into a model, but it goes into a general risk premium for European real estate and means you need higher equity returns.’

Focusing on problems in Europe, such as the continent’s declining competitiveness, he concluded: ‘I think Europe over the last 50 years has always shown itself able to overcome these challenges. There are a few headwinds, but I believe that Germany will ultimately sort out its issues - manufacturing might become more high value than it has traditionally been.’