alstria office REIT-AG Blog

I love it when a plan comes together!

2011-09-30T08:29:00-07:00

European leaders might or might not be putting together CDO² in order to save (or kill for that matter) the Eurozone. The ECB might or might not become a large hedge fund. European banks might be under-capitalized (from what we can see it is fair to say that at least their real estate loan book is nowhere close where it would need to be). The US are facing huge budgets constrains while US

No excuses

2011-08-27T01:42:00-07:00

You do not have enough time to read alstria's blog? You can access it now from your iphone via alstria's app. It available following this link http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/alstria-reit-ag/id451830672 or look for alstria in the appstore directly on your iphone... A preview of what the app does is available at the following link: http://alstria.webuda.com/ So from now on, there is no excuses.

What is wrong with rights?

2011-07-22T10:16:00-07:00

ISS is one of the leading corporate governance solutions to the global financial community. Their home page claims that they want to “enable the financial community to manage the governance risk for the benefit of shareholders”. As part its governance approach ISS is currently conducting a review of its voting policies and have launched a public consultation available on their website (http://

The inconvenient truth

2011-05-30T08:33:00-07:00

The Association of German Pfandbrief Banks (Verband deutscher Pfandbriefbanken, or vdp) have started a new (welcomed) initiative publishing a German office building rent index. The first result of this index are available on the vdp website (you will find the press release http://aox.ag/mfaQxW , and the index itself http://aox.ag/kkFoxR - theses links are for the English version but the same

Nash Equilibrium

2011-05-06T08:34:00-07:00

A number of open ended funds are offering their unit holders a very nice opportunity to make good usage of game theory and figure out what to do next. Some funds (see related article in the Immobilien Zeitung -in German- http://aox.ag/lvAZK1 ), are asking their current unit holders, what would be their behavior if the funds were to reopen for redemption. The underlying idea, is that the more

Control Freaks

2011-04-18T05:55:00-07:00

Social media is clearly not yet an accepted way of communicating in a publicaly listed environment. alstria’s short experience in the matter, is that very little (real estate ?) stakeholders actually look at twitter, blogs, LinkedIn and other social media. Still you never know how thinks might develop in the future. So we might want to keep the social media experiment up for a while. More

Real Life

2011-04-04T02:05:00-07:00

Some pictures of the Mundsburg Construction site.

The good, the bad and the ugly

2011-04-01T08:08:00-07:00

In a recent paper, signed by Joseph Harvey, President and CIO of Cohen and Steers (disclaimer, Cohen and Steers is as far as I know one of our shareholder), the investment manager argues about the merits of allowing European REIT to execute capital increase excluding subscription rights. (The document can be read at the following address http://bit.ly/flBlrP) Having executed a recent capital

Japanese’s whispers

2010-12-08T19:34:00-08:00

I have put on a paper some thoughts while I was in roadshow in Asia, following meeting with investors and investment analysts. As a disclaimer, I am writing this in the middle of a jetlagged night, and I clearly do not pretend to know what I am talking about here. 1- In China, it seems that it is more reasonable to invest into less known secondary cities, than in the majors. Rational being that

Same Player Shoot Again.

2010-12-04T13:40:00-08:00

A recent article in PropertyEU (http://bit.ly/dXPKja) and other real estate newsletters report on the last IPD/IPF conference where a number of commentator have indicated that the solvency II directive will increase insurance companies willingness to lend to real estate. This might as well be true, but between you and me Solvency II will have potentially more far reaching implication for the real

Real Life

2010-11-24T05:38:00-08:00

Picture from the construction site of the New Ohnsorg Theater.

Hold your fire

2010-11-12T07:55:00-08:00

We had the question on alstria’s quaterly call this week. Listening to other German real estate companies call, and reading a number of analyst note, it seems that there is a growing number of (non German) market participant who expect “distressed sales” coming from the German open ended funds (mainly of the ones which said they will liquidate). Is German open ended funds liquidation a great

Little Dorrit

2010-10-27T23:54:00-07:00

Anyone interested in real estate investment is aware of the „difficult“ times the German open ended fund industry is going through. As you can expect the German press is full of article trying to figure out what happened, what a solution would be (may I naively suggest listing?) and whether or not it is safe to invest in them again. In the last few days there were a number of article which

Honi soit qui mal y pense

2010-08-18T13:52:00-07:00

In the foreword to a green supplement in the magazine House and Garden (in 2008), the Prince wrote: "Why, I must ask, does being 'green' mean building with glass and steel and concrete and then adding wind turbines, solar panels, water heaters, sedum roofs, glass atria - all the paraphernalia of a new 'green building industry' - to offset buildings that are inefficient in the first place?

We (almost) made it happen

2010-07-08T12:34:00-07:00

News that I felt went through pretty much un-noticed in the last month was the publication of the latest Jones Lang LaSalle transparency index (you can register for free on JLL website and download the study here). For the first time since inception, the German market is part of the “tier 1” countries, along side with the UK, Australia, France and 12 other countries. More precisely Germany is

Real Life

2010-05-18T07:02:00-07:00

Some pictures of the Alte Post construction site And the promotional video of the asset

Ginger Ale

2010-04-22T09:33:00-07:00

The CMBS market is back. At least so they say. An article in the FT (which can be read here), suggests that a first 350 M€ CMBS was placed in the Netherland. That is real news, as the stall of the CMBS market is clearly one of the main concern still out there. It is becoming mainstream wisdom that there is a large debt overhang coming up, which is to a great part linked to CMBS. The bizarre

CETERIS PARIBUS

2010-03-12T13:19:00-08:00

alstria as a real estate company is very much interested in the debate relating Green Buildings and the better understanding of the fundamental of this new key development is an important factor in setting up the future strategy of the company. As part of background research work, I read recently a report called “Doing well by doing Good? Green Office Buildings”. It can be freely accessed

Corporate Ethic

2010-03-07T07:26:00-08:00

Corporate Responsibility and the Environment. This mini-doco by karma production came 3rd in the recent competition sponsored by Australian Ethical in association with the Australian Documentary Foundation. No comments.

Quality rather than quantity

2009-11-09T06:18:00-08:00

The debate about the need for more transparency in the real estate listed sector is back in the Germany. In principle there is nothing bad about the requirement for more transparency. I hope that alstria has in the past demonstrated many times its willingness to provide the market with the right set of information at the right time. There is in my opinion a dangerous amalgam between

The two fridges syndrome

2009-10-05T11:38:00-07:00

BREEAM, LEED, HQE or DGNB. Real estate companies and real estate investors should get familiar with these logos and names, as these are the national trademarks for green building respectively in the UK (and international), US (and rest of the world), France, and Germany. These standards will usually provide a certificate (which can be silver, gold or platinum…) by looking at the building

Will Aristote save the real estate finance?

2009-09-04T06:30:00-07:00

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Unexpected growth

2009-07-17T04:47:00-07:00

It is not unusual to use approximations for the total area of a real estate asset. Different countries use different measurement rules, and different real estate professionals measure different things (built area, lettable area, usable area...). I do not recall having ever seen a building where everyone agrees on the total area (although it might look odd, but this is also true in some instance

Back to the Future

2009-06-12T08:06:00-07:00

Michael J. Fox driving his DeLorean back and forth in the past and in the future, riding his skateboard, listening to Huey Lewis and the News singing the “Power of Love” was one of my favorite movies. I spent an awful lot of time looking at the VHS video (for those who are younger than 25, VHS tapes were big black boxes with movies of bad quality which you could watch on TV, and TVs at that time

Evolution

2009-05-18T08:57:00-07:00

Real Estate Investment Trust or REIT, is a global trademark which started in the US in the 1960’s, and is now spread across the globe. When a company define itself as a REIT, it mean that it adhere to a number of simple concept. Its is usually a listed company, its business must be real estate investment it is tax transparent, and it pays most of its profit as dividend. Although the local