GRI Summit - Global Real Estate Institute

Keynotes
A GREATER EUROPE
Renaissance or False Dawn?
ROGER BOOTLE chief economist CAPITAL ECONOMICS
For millions formerly oppressed and for mankind generally, it is a dream come true: an
enlarged Europe, at peace, prosperous, welcoming and merging ten new nations into a
new supranational identity that proclaims the past is dead and we are now all brothers
and sisters. These new entrants bring vigor, enthusiasm, a hunger that will overwhelm
the rigidities that have maintained Europe in a pernicious economic decline. Somewhat
less fervently, some skeptical party-spoilers suggest that this will only spread the straightjacket
wider and remove any competitive edge the Old Continent might have possessed
hitherto. Roger Bootle, Economist, “Wise Man”, visionary (“The Death of Infl ation”) and
one of today’s most celebrated commentators now suggests that what you see may not
be what you get...
Roger Bootle
EUROPEAN REAL ESTATE PROSPECTS
Stellar returns, wobbling along or crash?
MICHAEL E PRALLE president & ceo GE REAL ESTATE
ROGER BOOTLE chief economist CAPITAL ECONOMICS
LÉON BRESSLER chairman & ceo UNIBAIL
RUPERT CLARKE head of property HERMES
KURT MÜLLER md DB REAL ESTATE
While some argue that a “wall of money” and an interest-rate driven bubble mentality has kept real estate prices
high and development excessive, there are others who keep pouring in with yet more capital, governments that
create new vehicles to make real estate investment more accessible yet and pundits who suggest property yields
compare favorably and the joyride has just begun. Demographics may be dim but the service sector needs to
expand more than ever, is the believers’ cheerful view. Industry chiefs and visionaries that spend most of their
waking hours thinking of little else than investment strategy, now come together and suggest how it’s going to
look like and what you might want to do about it... It is not what you’d expect...
Roger Bootle
Léon Bressler
Michael E Pralle
Rupert Clarke
Kurt Müller