Prime Development, an international shopping centre developer and mall manager specialising in projects in Turkey, has opened Prime Mall Antakya, a shopping centre located in south-eastern Turkey.

RREEF Real Estate, the real estate investment management business of Deutsche Bank’s asset management division, has acquired Verizon Communications’ 36,418-square-metre office headquarters complex at Reading International Business Park, on behalf of its client, a leading Asian pension fund, for £140.15 million (€163 million).

Frankfurt-based Treveria Asset Management GmbH, the German affiliate of UK investor Treveria, has commissioned IC Property Management GmbH, a group company of IC Immobilien Gruppe, to take over the management of its German real estate portfolio comprising 370 properties.

Union Investment has acquired the Hehku office development in Vantaa, Finland, from NCC Property Development for approximately €20 million.

A joint venture between Miller Developments, Ellandi and a Middle Eastern investment group advised by WW Advisors has purchased a UK retail property and an adjacent site as a development project.

The uncertainty that is an endemic part of the subdued investment market activity at present — in all asset classes, even those regarded as relative safe havens — is due almost entirely to the euro zone sovereign debt crisis that is now also playing out into a banking crisis, a leadership crisis, a political crisis for the European Union and an economic crisis for the world.

Debt real estate funds were once viewed as a niche sector of the private closed-end real estate industry. No more. Investors have flocked to debt investment strategies in search of attractive risk-adjusted returns in an uncertain, often volatile, post-crash commercial real estate market.

The German hotel market has always differed from other markets in Europe, such as those in France and the United Kingdom, because room rates are relatively low in comparison. Many countries began to feel the effects of the economic downturn by the end of 2008; however, in 2010 the German market showed signs of brisk recovery and proved to be a star performer as the country’s strong manufacturing industry and continued demand for exports helped Germany’s economy and hotel sector to recover faster than those of other European cities.

The central thesis put forward in Economic Observer, the Chinese book that I co-wrote with Arthur Shek, is that the current debt crisis is part of a long-term economic restructuring in the advanced economies as they face various issues –– an expansion of entitlement programmes, a growing balance of government debt and the increasingly significant effects of an ageing society. The issue of the ageing population has dragged down Japan, and it is also a pressing question that the United States is facing.

The Townsend Group, a US-based real estate consultant and adviser, has agreed to provide seed capital for AEW UK’s first fund.

Cordea Savills has launched a fund to develop residential property in London.

InfraRed Capital Partners (IRCP) has purchased a 51,000-square-metre logistics unit in Frankfurt.