INDUSTRIAL PROPERTY IN GERMANY: BAD PERFORMANCE OR LACK OF KNOWLEDGE?

Abstract

Despite its total size and value Industrial Property is still not a hot topic on the agenda of German institutional investors. While about 80% of existing property space in Germany is linked to industrial, institutional investors still prefer traditional property sectors like office and retail. This attitude does not match with the strategy of investors in the UK and the US, where industrial already plays a vital role. One first insight into this fact comes from a comparison of the constitution of the national Investment Property Database (IPD) market indices between Germany, the UK and the US. While in Germany Industrial Property is only responsible for 4.2% of the capital value of all properties, these numbers for the UK and the US are 14.4% and 20.4% respectively. Although it should be noted that this diverse distribution could be a result of other factors as well, this tendency sheds light on a different behavior of institutional investors across countries. The objective of this paper is to investigate what is known about German Industrial Property and therefore summarize and systematize available literature and data. By doing this, the following questions will be assessed: i)As it is assumed that in the long run growth of institutional investment in German Industrial Property will have to come from diminishing real estate ownership by companies, do higher levels of real estate ownership in Germany explain the different behavior between German and UK/US institutional investors? ii)Is investment in German Industrial Property associated with weaker financial performance and higher associated risk? iii)How can Industrial Property be sub-categorized and which subcategory is expected to show best performance according to questions i) and ii)?