Asian investment into Europe to hit €41.2b by end of 2017

Asian investment into Europe reached €23.2 billion ($27.2 billion) by the end of third quarter 2017, a 57 percent increase year-on-year, and with fourth quarter volumes on course to reach approximately €18 billion ($21.1 billion), total annual volumes will reach a record €41.2 billion ($48.3 billion), according to international real estate adviser Savills.

This is mainly due to Blackstone’s sale of the Logicor logistics portfolio, comprising 630 distribution centers across 17 European markets, to Chinese Investment Corporation (CIC) for €12.12 billion ($14.2 billion) in June 2017. However, across Asia, investor appetite for European real estate has increased as private investors and property companies have joined sovereign wealth funds in hunting for income-producing assets. Whereas a decade ago, Chinese investment was dominant, Asian capital is now more evenly split between sources in Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea and China.

The United Kingdom has been the des