122 Leadenhall Street, EC3<\/a> \u2212 was still \u201cpretty bullish\u201d on London compared with European cities.<\/p>\n\u201cYou have to think of it also on a global investor perspective on a relative basis, so clearly there\u2019s turbulence in the US with Trump and everything that is happening,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the Continent as well there\u2019s elections coming up and I\u2019m not sure what the European Union is going to look like in the future so despite Brexit, which is certainly a topic and has been for many months, and despite Article 50 looking like it\u2019s coming closer, in some ways you could argue that the UK looks pretty stable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unchanged appetites<\/h4>\n
Andrew Stainer, AXA IM \u2013 Real Assets\u2019 global head of asset management, said he had several meetings last week with large institutional investors whose commitment to the UK was \u201cunchanged\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cWe have four countries in Europe that are particularly strong for us \u2013 France, Germany, the UK and Switzerland.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of the UK, about 75% of our portfolio held on behalf of our clients is focused on the South East in London. London is one of the greatest, most transparent, liquid real estate markets in the world, so our commitment to it is unchanged and the commitment of our investors to that market is unchanged.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pavel Trenka, group chief executive of Slovakia-headquartered HB Reavis, which has developed three office buildings in London, said he saw the UK as a \u201ccrystal ball\u201d which could go either way. However, he said the firm remained committed to having a third of its portfolio in Europe by the end of 2018.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are staying positive, we still see strong fundamentals on the occupational side, so I think that\u2019s for us the most important,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In particular he is hopeful that the demand from TMT occupiers will remain unchanged, although he admitted he has found potential occupiers in London reluctant to make \u201cany big decisions\u201d on leasing space recently.<\/p>\n
Attracting investors<\/h4>\n
The UK government sent three ministers to MIPIM last week, and took a pavilion for the first time, as part of a bid to convince investors that the UK remained an attractive place to invest.<\/p>\n
International trade minister Mark Garnier told EG<\/i> that the UK looked relatively secure. \u201cAt least, in a funny sort of way with the UK, the one thing you do have is a certainty that you know where it\u2019s going,\u201d he said. \u201cWe still have to strike a deal with the EU, we haven\u2019t triggered Article 50 yet, but that will be happening within the next two weeks. It\u2019s going to be a long process, but we know the journey that Britain\u2019s starting on and this is a really important point. Britain is not moving away from the EU, we will continue to be a trading partner with the EU, they will continue to be our best friends, and we\u2019re certainly not leaving Europe. But what we are doing is embarking on a journey to internationalise this country, much, much more than it has been in the past.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it\u2019s worth considering the UK as an exporter, the value of our exports is just 27% of GDP \u2013 oddly that makes us one of the smallest exporting nations in the EU. We want to change that. We want to attract more global investment, we want to export the Great British brand to other countries. This will continue to push the UK up the GDP per capita scale and that\u2019s something which I think all investors want to see.\u201d<\/p>\n
One way in which he said government was helping attract investors was by reducing corporation tax to 17%.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cWe will be the lowest corporation tax rating in the G20 in the not too distant future. What we\u2019re creating is an incredibly exciting opportunity for businesses to come and do some very interesting things. Your corporation tax is very low, your public services are very, very good quality.<\/p>\n
\u201cCombine those together, it\u2019s a great place for people to come and work. We attract best quality skills in the world, we\u2019ve got the financial services hub of the world, we\u2019ve got some really, really big opportunities there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Real estate contribution<\/h4>\n
![\"BPFarticle50\"](\"http:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/cjp-rbi-estatesgazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/BPFarticle50.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nMelanie Leech, chief executive of the British Property Federation, welcomed the triggering of Article 50 as it provided some level of certainty to the industry, but said the government needs to \u201cboth understand the real estate industry\u2019s contribution to the UK\u2019s success, and what it will take to ensure that it can continue to deliver growth and productivity\u201d.<\/p>\n
The BPF\u2019s manifesto priorities for government are: maintain investor confidence in the UK and drive growth; provide fair, competitive and stable tax, regulatory and planning systems; invest in infrastructure and free up public sector land; help us to ensure access to global talent and skilled workers; and support more housing supply across all tenures.<\/p>\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Downing Street has confirmed that Article 50 will be triggered next Wednesday (29 March). What impact will the start of formal proceedings have on the UK property market? Responding to the prospect at MIPIM last week, Derek Jacobson, co chief investment officer at New York-headquartered Madison International Realty, said: \u201cI think it\u2019s clearly something to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9PjAq-Ht","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2695\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Photo](\"http:\/\/s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/cjp-rbi-estatesgazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/EU-flag-Westminster-Big-Ben-REX-775x270.jpg\")
<\/p>\n