Canada’s PSP buys European warehouse portfolio

Canada’s PSP buys European warehouse portfolio

Canada’s Public Sector Pension Investment Board has bought a half share in a European portfolio of ’big box’ warehouses and land from Segro, a UK REIT.  Segro said it sold the portfolio of assets in Italy, the Czech Republic and Poland to its ongoing joint venture with PSP Investments – Segro European Logistics Partnership (SELP) – for €89.4m.

IPE Real Estate – IPE Real Estate

Manulife targets European property investment

Kai Sotorp, the chief executive of Manulife Asset Management, is in charge of funds totalling £226 billion at the Canadian insurer and has £30bn assigned to European investments.  The Canadian asset manager has been expanding its London office over the past two years and has almost doubled headcount to more than 40 in the past 12 months alone.

EFinancenews.com

CBRE office revamp best-in-class, targets WELL

At face value, it seems obvious: if you are in the commercial real estate business, shouldn’t you operate out of the best-in-class office space that you try to line up for your clients? That’s part of the thinking behind CBRE’s current program to upgrade its offices nationwide.

Property Biz Canada

Walmart Canada to name new CEO

Walmart Canada is looking for a new chief executive with news of CEO Dirk Van den Berghe’s reassignment to China. Van den Berghe, who has quietly led the country’s biggest mass merchant through a period of ever strengthening results since taking up the helm in August of 2014, will also be in charge of the retailer’s Asia region, including Japan.

Financial Post

Major flood event could cost Canada many billions

Severe flood events in Canada could lead to more than $13 billion in losses, with less than half of that amount covered by insurance, according to a new report authored by reinsurance company Swiss Re. In its report, The road to flood resilience in Canada, released Wednesday, Swiss Re uses a flood model to simulate the loss generated by both river flooding and torrential rainfall in Canada.

Calgary Herald

Tallest wood condo tower in N.A. starts construction

This morning, a ground-breaking ceremony was held for the Origine green condo project, set to become the tallest solid wood condo tower in North America. Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard and Quebec City Mayor Régis Labeaume both attended the event to celebrate the project, which has positioned Quebec as a leader in eco-friendly wood construction.

Canada Newswire – Toronto Star

Toronto towers reveal intricacies of downtown skyscraper

Tall buildings are shaped by economic incentives, but there’s also a poetic motive at work, a drive to find the longest view, a higher office than your competitors, a perch up above it all. But when that drive to the top goes unchecked, tall buildings can be arrogant trophies, strutting and cluttering up the skyline with swoops and bulges.

The Globe and Mail

Toronto schools subject to closing review

More than 100 schools will be involved in reviews for closing or boundary changes over the next six years under the Toronto District School Board’s updated long-term plan said vice chair Jennifer Arp, a member of the planning and priorities committee, where the accommodation report will be discussed.

Toronto Star

Edmonton to preserve the Iron Works as a heritage building

For the first time in living memory, Edmonton is fighting to save a heritage building against the owners’ consent and it has some wondering if the city finally found a backbone. Built in 1909, the Iron Works building is likely Edmonton’s oldest industrial building, but it’s not much to look. 

Edmonton Journal

Five e-commerce retailers that opened bricks-and-mortar shops

Companies often launch online stores without a physical presence in order to save on costly overhead expenses from stores or to avoid being tied down by geography. But many e-commerce operators eventually look to expand their reach beyond the nimble digital realm.

Toronto Star

Toronto program helps retailers boost online presence

The City of Toronto launched an initiative Monday aimed at helping the city’s small businesses make the switch from bricks to clicks.  The Digital Main Street platform helps connect local bricks and mortar businesses with digital tools and strategies. It is the city’s solution to a “real lack of adoption for main street businesses when it comes to technology,” said Chris Rickett, manager of entrepreneurship services with the City.

Toronto Star

Thor sells Fifth Avenue asset to French Billionaire

Thor Equities has dropped the hammer on its sale of the office and retail building at 693 Fifth Ave. in New York City to French billionaire Marc Ledreit de Lacharrière with investment fund management company Fimalac for $525 million.  Thor acquired the asset from Japanese retailer Takashimaya New York, Inc. in July 2010 for $142 million.

CoStar Group

Is there a better way to build a stadium?

It has become widely accepted that publicly-financed sports stadiums are a bad deal for cities. Yet in Milwaukee, located in a state that recently cut $250 million from its higher-education system, the state has agreed to to pitch in $250 million for a new arena for the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team. The new building, to be built just a few feet from the current arena—the BMO Bradley Center.

The Atlantic

Foreign firms flocking to Shanghai Free Trade Zone

Foreign investment into the Shanghai Free Trade Zone (FTZ) is driving unprecedented demand for prime office space. Chinese Ministry of Commerce data shows that from January to September last year, the number of newly registered foreign-invested enterprises in the pilot FTZ rose by 52.6% year on year.

Business in Vancouver

Industry poised to thrive near new Panama Canal

The inauguration on June 26 of the third set of locks of the Panama Canal should benefit several business sectors, including developers of Panamanian commercial-industrial centers, natural gas shippers, and port builders on the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean.  There has been talk recently of other interoecan projects in the region, especially in Costa Rica, Mexico and Nicaragua.

Central America Link

Featured Column

The greenbelt’s collateral damage

The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing announced in May that Ontario is proposing to grow the Greenbelt. Ontario’s Greenbelt is an area of green space, farmland, forests, and watersheds, and is one of the largest bands of permanently protected land in the world.

Read more

Buying your own office – Why it’s worth it now more than ever

In Vancouver, there’s a lot of talk about our dwindling industrial land supply. Hemmed in by mountains, ocean, the Agricultural Land Reserve and growing residential demands, the city is struggling to provide enough office and warehouse space for new and existing businesses.

Read more

Market Trends and Research

More Victoria hotels mulled and renos surge

Reid James, general manager of Victoria’s Hotel Grand Pacific, is counting down the days to July 4, when he is scheduled to get 116 of his hotel’s 304 rooms back in service after a massive renovation.  “Timing is everything,” James said, noting that while the tourism industry has boomed, the hotel has been without as many as 200 rooms at a time since last fall.

Business in Vancouver

CRE sales highest in Metro Vancouver in five years

Metro Vancouver commercial real estate sales had their most active quarter in five years, with 660 transactions across the Lower Mainland in the first three months of 2016, according to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV).

BIV

Seniors’ housing vacancy rate in Ontario hits low

CMHC has reported that the overall vacancy rate for seniors’ residences dropped from 11.5 per cent last year to 10.7 per cent in 2016, the lowest level since 2001. The growth in demand outpaced supply as total residents grew by 6.5 per cent while supply increased by 4.9 per cent to 56,300 spaces. The average rent for a standard space increased by 6.7 per cent to $3,499.

Marketwired

Nenshi fires back over skyrocketing property tax bills

The war of words continued Monday between Calgary’s mayor and an outspoken business lobbyist over skyrocketing property taxes. After tax bills landed in mailboxes earlier this month, business owners across the city came forward with stories of massive tax increases.

Calgary Herald

REOC Financial Reports

	REITs & REOCs – First-quarter 2016 report
	RENX has prepared a table with a convenient list of the companies and a summary of links to their reports that will be updated quarterly. First-quarter results are now arriving. Canadian REITs & REOCs – First-quarter 2016 report

 

Real Estate Investment Trusts

BTB REIT announces public offering trust units

BTB REIT (BTB.UN-T) has reached an agreement with a syndicate of underwriters led by National Bank Financial Inc. to issue to the public, subject to regulatory approval, on a bought deal basis 6,594,000 trust units  at a price of $4.54 per Unit representing gross proceeds of approximately $30.0 million.

Marketwired

Pure Industrial REIT closes bought deal

Pure Industrial Real Estate Trust (AAR.UN-T) closed its previously announced public offering of 29,670,000 Class A trust units , inclusive of 3,870,000 Units issued pursuant to the exercise in full of the over-allotment option, on a bought deal basis, at a price of $5.05 per Unit for total gross proceeds of $149,833,500.

Canada Newswire

Fifteen reasonably priced REITs with room to grow

Real estate investments are often counted on for their diversification benefits, income generation and long-term growth opportunities. Real estate investment trusts allow investors to earn a share of income produced on a large basket of properties. Year-to-date, the S&P USA REIT total return index has posted a return of 8.8 per cent (in U.S. dollars). Locally, the S&P/TSX capped REIT total return index has returned 17.2 per cent.

Globe and Mail

Why buy these 3 REITs instead of rental houses

Just over a decade ago, I was all about buying rental properties. I wasn’t in love with managing them myself, but returns of over 10% before taxes–plus potential capital appreciation–made active management relatively attractive. I also liked the ability to leverage these properties using only a small amount of my own capital, as well as the ability to take nice write-offs when doing my taxes.

Motley Fool

Retail

IKEA planning expansion of Calgary store

IKEA has announced a $15-million expansion of its Calgary store, a project the furniture retailer says will create 135 full-time construction jobs over the next year and a half. Stefan Sjöstrand, president of IKEA Canada, said the expansion will add close to 27,000 square feet to the existing IKEA store.

Calgary Herald

‘Joint-employer’ status could rattle franchise industry

An emerging change in employment law called “joint employer status” could be a game-changer for the Canadian franchise industry, lawyers say. Unions and other employee advocates are arguing that the relationship between franchisees and franchisors is so close that both should be considered “joint employers” of a franchisees’ employees.

Financial Post

New Development

Edmonton Museum’s getting second-story video wall

When you’re building the glitzy $340-million Royal Alberta Museum in downtown Edmonton, sticking up a roadside billboard like its predecessor used to advertise the exhibitions inside wouldn’t cut it, the developers of the new facility decided. The museum is instead getting a second-storey video screen 20 metres wide by nearly six metres high, wrapped around its southwest corner.

Edmonton Journal

Brighton Block sale trouble Edmonton’s Ukrainian museum

The Brighton Block is on the block. Asking price? Slightly more than a cool $2.3 million. The handsome 1912 brick building on Jasper Avenue and 96 Street, also known as the Ernest Brown Block, is one of downtown Edmonton’s most striking heritage resources.

Edmonton Journal

Construction starts on luxury hotel in Winnipeg

Developers officially broke ground Tuesday on the city’s latest hotel project — the $35-million Hilton Garden Inn Winnipeg South that will be a key component in the high-profile Seasons retail/hotel/office/residential development in southwest Winnipeg.

Winnipeg Free Press

Infrastructure

One way pension funds could help Ottawa on infrastructure

Canada’s pension giants have yet to reach an agreement with Ottawa on how — or whether — to work together to push the government’s infrastructure agenda, but Ron Mock, chief executive of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board told the Financial Post the pension fund could potentially contribute by introducing its global partners to the domestic market.

Financial Post

Concrete poured into Ottawa sinkhole, but street could be closed for weeks

Officials say they have poured concrete into a massive sinkhole that opened up in the middle of downtown Ottawa five days ago, but the street remains closed.  The sinkhole swallowed three lanes of pavement, the sidewalk and a parked minivan when it opened up on Wednesday, and the city’s mayor says it may take several weeks to reopen the road.

The Globe and Mail – Daily Commercial News

Other

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