Shopping Centers Today -> May 2007
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AUSSIES HEAD FOR EUROPE

Australian property funds increased their European investments last year by 350 percent over the year before, to $6 billion, even as they decreased their U.S. activities by 67 percent to $3 billion, according to Jones Lang LaSalle. German and British properties received the most Aussie money, at $3.5 billion and $1.5 billion, respectively. Australians’ Asian investments, meanwhile, were stable at about $3 billion, of which $1.2 billion went to Japan and $1 billion went to Hong Kong. In total, Australians invested about $12 billion outside their country last year.



INSIDE TRACK

Toronto’s Calloway Real Estate Investment Trust is riding high on the thriving market for Wal-Mart-anchored centers across Canada, mainly because its largest shareholder helped bring Wal-Mart to the country. The firm’s net income soared 31.5 percent to C$35 million.The year’s strength was powered by Calloway’s relationship with SmartCentres, Canada’s leading developer of Wal-Mart-anchored centers. Mitchell Goldhar, SmartCentres’ president and CEO, is Calloway’s largest shareholder, with a 22 percent stake. Since 2003 Calloway has acquired most of the projects SmartCentre developed. In the fourth quarter alone, Calloway bought 14 retail properties for a total $383 million.

Calloway says its internal development pipeline grew 39 percent last year, bringing its portfolio to nearly 24 million square feet. Since its founding in the early 1980s, SmartCentres (formerly First Pro Shopping Centres) has emerged as Canada’s leading big-box developer. Goldhar has said that Calloway would be the “preferred buyer” of any SmartCentres’ project outside Canada. “This relationship,” said Simon Nyilassy, Calloway’s president and CEO, “will continue to contribute to Calloway’s success and growth in future years.”

— Curt Hazlett



REITS MORTGAGE HOLDINGS JUMPED

36 percent in ’06 U.S. REITS expanded their commercial mortgage holdings by 36 percent last year, even as private pension funds shed those same assets by 4 percent, according to the Federal Reserve Board. Commercial banks saw the largest increase of such holdings, in dollar terms, at $161 billion, up 14 percent. Commercial-mortgage-backed securities, collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and other asset-backed issues increased their holdings of commercial multifamily mortgages by $108 billion, up 21 percent. Life insurance companies experienced a net increase of $17 billion, up 7 percent. Total outstanding U.S. commercial mortgage debt last year reached $2.95 trillion, up 12.7 percent from 2005. Non-multifamily commercial mortgages made up about $219 billion of that.


DEAL BAROMETER: WHO IS PAYING HOW MUCH FOR WHAT (PDF)

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