Corporate property sales ‘a growing trend’ in EMEA

According to JLL’s latest report on corporate real estate capital raising, corporate real estate sales in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) have increased. 25.6 billion eurosin 2022. Despite the 14% decrease in annual investment volume worldwide, real estate markets managed to Facing global economic difficulties.

For the fifth year in a row, corporate property sales exceeded €25 billion, resulting in an increase of 9% compared to the average of the last ten years. The UK, Germany and France remain the most active markets, accounting for 54% of the region’s total transaction value. In the EMEA region, it occupied office and industrial real estate 60% of the total transaction value. Industrial and logistics real estate generated €9 billion in transactions.

“In Portugal, there is also a trend already for companies to sell their own properties.”

Goncalo Santos, Head of Capital Markets at JLL, says:In Portugal, there is also a tendency for companies to sell their own properties, often involving the option to remain as tenants, in processes known as sale-and-leaseback. The biggest motive for companies is to release capital to invest in the activity or to extinguish debt in the face of higher financing costs.»

However, he defends this official, “It is not an option widely adopted by the Portuguese commercial fabric, who often see their properties as an integral part of business, especially in an industrial area. However, we believe that the sale of private property will be a strategic option being considered by more and more companies in Portugal that, in addition to being a source of recapitalization, also allows to reduce the costs associated with owning and maintaining property.».

According to Nick Compton, Head of Corporate Capital Markets EMEA JLL, “In 2022, companies faced many obstacles that affected their growth, increased costs and disruptions in some supply chains. For companies occupying their own holdings, capital release remained an attractive and viable option for generating liquidity, in an environment with higher costs, to complement traditional corporate financing options. We believe that companies owned or controlled by private capital will continue to drive this profitability activity.».