Orchard Street Investment Management LLP has acquired a UK shopping centre for £80 million (€91 million).

The “merger of equals” between ProLogis and AMB Property Corp announced earlier this year was approved by the respective shareholders and took full effect on 3 June 2011. The new company, Prologis, Inc (note the small change in spelling), has assets under management totalling some €31 billion and is now one of the world’s largest listed real estate companies.

MGPA, on behalf of MGPA Europe Fund III, has acquired a 26-property portfolio of retail assets located in Germany, concentrated in Hesse, Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria. 

Land Securities has received planning approval for a two-building development in the City of London. The mixed-use development is expected to be completed in December 2013.

Invesco Real Estate has acquired two properties on behalf of a pan-European fund for €96 million. The fund purchased Gänsemarkt 45 in Hamburg and Flahult 21–45 in Jönköping, Sweden.

It’s taken us a while to come to the realisation that the planet is under threat from rising temperatures — though many are not convinced by the self-destruction thesis — and it’s taking us a while to decide what to do and how to do it. What is sustainability in real estate? Sustainability is about energy efficiency and environmental aspects, but it’s also about looking at economic and social issues when planning or constructing a building.

Europa Capital LLP, on behalf of the Europa Fund, has sold a 28,400-square-metre office building in Vienna for €75 million.

Corio has acquired a 75.8 percent interest in the Saint-Jacques shopping centre in Metz, France, for €96.4 million.

Aerium has acquired iQ, a newly built office property in Aberdeen, Scotland, for £50.1 million (€57 million).

Aberdeen Property Fund Denmark P/S has acquired a commercial property portfolio from the TDC Pension Fund for €90 million.

With the emergence of a secondary trading market, it might be possible to mitigate the most common drawbacks associated with the non-listed market. This secondary trading market provides investors with the ability to rebalance their portfolios in changing market conditions and to allocate efficiently and effectively along the cycle and opportunity set between private, listed and non-listed real estate.

In the past 10 years, Serbia’s commercial property market has started its transformation toward a more modern and sophisticated sector. Many observers consider Serbia to have high potential both in terms of its ability to attract significant foreign direct investment (FDI) from corporates as well as direct investment into property. However, a range of issues will need to be addressed if Serbia is to realise its full potential, including government bureaucracy, its unstable currency, its relatively poor infrastructure and a lack of market transparency.

Four years after UK real estate values started their precipitous decline, and nearly three years since the fall of Lehman Bros, investors in UK real estate are still battling with weak economic growth, impaired bank balance sheets and the threat of financial market disruption. And yet, despite all this, many investors still believe that commercial property in the United Kingdom looks like an attractive investment in spite of the continued cyclical changes.

In the current environment of relatively modest yields from most asset classes and with interest rates generally anticipated to be lower for longer, now is the time for investors to consider how global real estate could benefit their multi-asset portfolios. Real estate’s relatively secure and sustainable yield, underpinned by ongoing economic recovery and improvements in business and occupier confidence and generally constrained supply globally, emphasises the asset class’s attractiveness at this stage of the economic cycle.

ING Real Estate Investment Management (REIM) has acquired a prime shopping centre in Kalmar, Sweden, for €44.7 million.