At the same time, there are questions about where to charge these EVs and how to ensure cities remain accessible for all, given these are the economic and social engines of our society. Since car parks can play an important role in this contradiction, Primevest Capital Partners, Europe’s leading investment manager in car parks, hosted a round table event at Dutch Real estate trade fair Provada.

During the discussion, Fred Wilkes (Q-Park NL), Carlo Barten (APCOA NL) and Rutger Schuur (ParkBee), the parking sector’s thought leadership, shared their vision of the role of car parks in relation to the transition to EVs, their potential use as the city’s battery, the impact on the economy and inclusivity of our cities and reducing traffic movements in the city by digitisation and by adding additional uses. The main theme “Car parks: the facilitators of the liveable city” was introduced by moderators Bas Magielse and Tim Vreeken (Primevest Capital Partners). Car parks can facilitate the transition from fossil-fuelled vehicles to EVs.

Carlo Barten kicked off the round table session by arguing the car park sector could play an important role in the transition from fossil-fuelled vehicles to EVs. “Charging an EV takes more time than filling up a car with petrol, even when charged at a fast charger. Converting all petrol stations into EV charging stations will not be sufficient for this reason. Therefore, it would make sense to additionally position EV chargers in public car parks, as EVs tend to be parked there for a longer time.”

Read full article here.

To date, the Netherlands-based Primevest CP and HCOB have worked together on four deals to develop fiber optic networks in Germany, totalling more than €100 million. The relationship is mutually beneficial. HCOB provides customized financing which meets Primevest CP’s requirements. Primevest CP, in turn, selects the assets, brings in general contractors and monitors construction, and then leases the newly-built network to the specially selected internet service provider (ISP) on a long-term agreement.

It is not a new field for HCOB, which began investigating the opportunities offered by fiber optic cable networks in 2014, starting with greenfield sides. ‘The parameters are very different to other asset classes,’ says Inka Klinger, HCOB’s Head of Project Finance. ‘We were a pioneer when we started and it took a while to build up an understanding of the market.’ The market has moved on rapidly since then, as has HCOB’s expertise. ‘One of our tasks is to identify new trends and opportunities in the energy and infrastructure market. At the same time, you have to build up knowledge and experience quickly to achieve a good market position as an expert, and to benefit from early mover advantages,’ she says.

HCOB’s first broadband transaction involved a German fiber optic subsidiary set up by Dutch construction group Volker Wessels. ‘Germans are generally late adopters and the Netherlands was advanced in fiber rollout,’ says Gerrit Hecking, Senior Vice President Project Finance for Infrastructure at the Hamburgbased bank, as he looks back to the early years.

Read full article: Interview with Primevest Captial Partners and Hamburg Commercial Bank about financing fiber. 

Interview has been conducted by Robin Pascoe of Dutch News.

This was also visible in the renewed focus on core investments in 2020 and 2021 as well as the high investment activity in the more crisis-resistant considered residential real estate sector of institutional investors, which followed as a reaction to the Corona pandemic and emphasised their security affinity.

However, rising construction prices and interest rates since the beginning of the year 2022 have increased the pressure on a market already characterised by high demand and corresponding yield compression. The core markets in Central and Northern Europe, which were already affected by falling yields before the Corona pandemic, were particularly hit.

The existing tension between risk tolerance and return expectations was resulting in a more visible willingness to adjust the risk profile in the end of 2021 and beginning of 2022. But also influenced by the alignment of the actual and target allocation in real estate following the high investment activity in recent years, many European investors started adopting a cautious stance from the second half of 2022 in anticipation of possible price declines as a result of falling demand in connection with the persistently high interest rate level. The lowered growth forecasts in many countries in the course of 2022 in combination with continued high, albeit declining, inflation and the increasing sustainability requirements of real estate products also tended to increase the preference of European investors for investments in core products again.

You can read the full article here. 

Nowadays, car parks are highly appreciated by investors because of the proven track record of this asset class which had previously been overlooked by the institutional investment world for a long time. This has gradually evolved over the last decade as more and more investors recognise the unique qualities and attractive risk-return profile in this asset class.

Urbanisation is an ongoing trend in Europe that puts a great deal of pressure on the quality of public space and inner-city life resulting in the rapid reduction of on-street parking. Car parks are critical in facilitating this reduction by freeing up street space. In addition, the volume of passenger vehicles is forecast to rise.

Our Parking Team has written an article about the car park investment market.
Read full article here.

Albacete is the capital of the province by the same name. It is the economic headquarters of the autonomous community Castilla-La Mancha. With its 175,000 inhabitants, the city boasts five major commercial areas in the immediate outskirts for tens of thousands of employees. In addition, Airbus runs a manufacturing and maintenance plant for the Eurocopter and the capacity and staff will most likely be doubled over the next few years. A NATO air force base has stationed some 3,000 soldiers on the outskirts of the city.

A great deal more has been planned, such as major international high-tech companies and mega-players in international logistics. Last, but not least, the impressive project of a puerto seco (dry harbour) as a logistics platform, will be subsidized by the government of Castilla-La Mancha with an investment of EUR 50 million. In three years’ time more than 100,000 grain containers will travel by train from the railway station in Albacete to its destination in Valencia. Albacete’s railway station also accommodates the AVE high-speed train, making it is easy to reach destinations like Madrid in the time that it takes to play a game of football.

Peter Renk, Head of Residential and Country Manager Germany has written an article about the Spanish residential market. Read full article here.

Source picture Albacete: https://rare-gallery.com/thumbs/735901-Castilla-Albacete-Spain-Houses.jpg

When real estate investors think of digital communication infrastructure perhaps the first images that come to mind are of those mobile telecom masts and data centres. However, outside this sphere, is a third category of digital infrastructure which seems to get relatively less attention.

Given the important part fibre cables play in digital infrastructure, it is surprising it is not spoken more of. As the internet grows ever more powerful fuelling business growth and personal leisure time, you would think investors in real estate assets could not afford to overlook returns from the development of the fibre network. Fibre optic cables have been around for decades, so they are not new. They are preferred to copper networks for being relatively inexpensive in comparison, and for being better at carrying signals for longer distances, while also cutting electromagnetic interference.

Perhaps it is unsurprising that very few real estate companies have a specialization in fibre cabling. After all, it does not sound like a real estate business. But one that does is Primevest Capital Partners, the Netherlands-based company which has a digital infrastructure business alongside carparks and residential property. The company launched its first Communication Infrastructure Fund in 2017 giving it a “first mover” advantage and, is launching a second fund that aims to amass up between €800mln – €1bn of assets. Primevest is involved in the “passive” layer of fibre cables meaning “all” it does is identify areas of demand, gains the necessary permissions, employs contractors to dig up the ground to lay the cable, and rents it out to an operator such as Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom or NKL on long term leases.

Frank Noé, Head of Capital Formation at the group, says: ‘Fibre optic cable is the backbone of our future economies, the backbone of growth, and decent work environments, and the very information society that the EU is striving for.’

Read full interview (for subscribers): https://lnkd.in/eKreyEpm

To accommodate this, considerable investments are needed to expand and upgrade today’s communication infrastructure network. This opens up an attractive new asset class for institutional investors: passive telecommunications infrastructure assets – such as fixed-line cabling, mobile towers and data centers. An article by Primevest Capital Partners, a pan-European investment boutique with more than €3 billion AuM specialising in innovative real assets and already active in this field with the ‘Primevest Communication Infrastructure Fund I’ (PCIF) and PCIF II to be launched in April 2022, outlines the communication industry’s investment challenge and the window of opportunity it offers to institutional investors.

Long investment horizons
These communication infrastructure assets have lifecycles and utility-like characteristics with long investment horizons and can offer modest but reliable cash returns to institutional investors, backed by long-term lease contracts with telecom operators. Moreover, by introducing private capital to the world of communication infrastructure, institutional investors can play a vital role in the development of the ‘digital economy’, thus delivering important economic and social benefits. However, investing in cable infrastructure nowadays effectively means putting one’s money on one specific infrastructure asset: fibre-optics. That might seem a risky thing to do in an era of fast technological change and ‘disruption’, even if the exposure to technological developments is limited for institutional investors because they would not be investing in the telecom operators themselves. Can institutional investors invest in passive telecommunication infrastructure in the confidence that fibre-optic assets have the ‘longevity’ that not only provides investors with an attractive cash return during the lease term, but also maintains or even grows long-term capital value? Primevest explains that such confidence would be justified: fibre-optic.

Read full article here.

Primevest Capital Partners also has a White Paper available about this topic. If you would like to receive this extended version please send an inquiry to lisette.vanderham@primevestcp.com

The government’s Digital Agenda stimulates the roll-out of fiber optic connections to the 5G mobile internet; all this has an impact on autonomous driving, real-time information exchange, smart parking garages that generate energy and become transit hubs in cities, but also the narrowing of street lights by applying fine dust, temperature and traffic measurement sensors to improve the living and working climate in cities.

Heimen Visser sketches the beginning of a smart future in about 10 minutes.
See the full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqV27wdKinU&feature=youtu.be&t=1410

Yet with industry insiders calculating that around half a billion of standalone, investment-grade assets were traded in the sector in 2019, nearly twice the figure for 2018, it is apparent that investor demand is on the rise. Furthermore, the latest state-driven sustainability initiatives – plus the rising value of prime, down-town land in Europe’s leading cities – may actually be boosting the relevance of parking facilities, according to Primevest Capital Partners, one of Europe’s leading car park investors.

BY ISOBEL LEE

Read full article: Article PropertyEU