Metric Property Investments Plc has acquired a UK retail park for £15.1 million (€17.7 million) from Black Pearl Investments.

Palmer Capital, a pan-European real estate fund manager, and UK-based Low Carbon have formed a fund that will invest in UK solar parks.

Munroe K has sold a 50 percent stake in the White Rose Office Park, a 43,700-square-metre business park in Leeds, to a fund managed by Orion Capital Partners.

Patrizia GewerbeInvest KAG has acquired an office building in the Netherlands on behalf of the LB Büro-Invest Europa I Spezialfonds for €30 million.

The Pan-European Urban Retail Fund (PURetail), which was launched by Cushman & Wakefield Investors and Scottish Widows Investment Partnership, has made its first investment, acquiring a 4,800-square-metre office and retail building in Düsseldorf for nearly €20 million.

Rockspring Property Investment Managers has received one of the largest financing deals in France so far this year, securing a €219 million debt facility for the O’Parinor Shopping Centre in northern Paris.

SEB Asset Management has purchased a 6,700-square-metre office building in Espoo, Finland, from OP Life Assurance, a Finnish insurance group.

Tristan Capital Partners, on behalf of its Curzon Capital Partners III, has acquired the Cuprum Building in Glasgow for £23 million (€27 million).

Real Estate Investors Plc (REI) has paid £13.05 million (€15.3 million) for three properties in the United Kingdom’s Midlands region.

Union Investment has acquired a 223-unit apartment complex in Berlin on behalf of its Residential Value Spezialfonds, which was launched as a €250 million single-investor fund focused on residential assets, primarily in Berlin.

F&C REIT Asset Management has received equity commitments from institutional investors of €170 million for the Best Value Germany I Spezialfonds.

Hines has acquired 111 Edmund Street in Birmingham, United Kingdom, on behalf of its Pan-European Core Fund, a euro-denominated FCP-FIS focused on core commercial buildings across Europe.

Henderson Global Investors has acquired the Tuna Park Shopping Centre in Eskilstuna, Sweden, from Alecta Pensionsförsäkring Ömsesidigt, for SKr 558 million (€61 million).

The Henderson German Retail Income Fund (HGRIF), which is sponsored by Henderson Global Investors, has raised €85 million in equity.

What's the outlook of the retail sector of the real estate investment industry — and what's the effect over time of the worsening demographic profile, with notable exceptions, across Europe and the increasing impact on traditional property–based retail channels of the trend to online shopping? Both will have ramifications for real estate demand going forward.

Europa Capital, the general partner of Europa Fund III, has acquired One Piccadilly Gardens and the Pavilion in Manchester from a private Irish investor for £67 million (€78 million).

Duet Private Equity has reached its targeted final capital of more than £300 million (€351 million) for its European Real Estate Debt Fund.

DIC Asset AG has acquired three fully let commercial properties in Germany for €78 million.

AXA Real Estate has acquired part of a UK distribution centre on behalf of a client from The Crown Estate, which holds a diversified real estate portfolio valued at more than £7 billion (€8.2 billion), with its entire income surplus paid to the UK Treasury.

CB Richard Ellis Investors, on behalf of its Pan-European Core Fund, has acquired a 12,000-square-metre retail property in Berlin’s Mitte district.

Al Faisal Holding Co, one of Qatar’s largest private diversified industry groups, through its subsidiary Al Rayan Tourism & Investment Co, has acquired the 192-room W London Hotel in London’s Leicester Square for approximately £200 million (€234 million) from Northern Irish developer McAleer & Rushe.

AEW Europe and GLL Real Estate Partners, the Munich-based fund manager, have completed the largest logistics investment transaction in France this year.

Aberdeen Asset Management, on behalf of the Aberdeen European Balanced Property Fund, has acquired a fully let office building in Munich from HIH Hamburgische Immobilien Handlung GmbH.

Germany-based Hannover Leasing has acquired 30 Crown Place in the City of London from Greycoat Central London Office Development Fund for £139 million (€163 million).

In his new book, The Leader’s Checklist,Wharton management professor Michael Useem presents a collection of 15 principles that can help leaders navigate successfully through even the most difficult circumstances. Using such milestone events as the rescue of the 33 Chilean miners in 2010, the collapse of AIG in 2008 and the surrender in the American Civil War of the Confederate Army at Appomattox in 1865, Useem illustrates the difference between good and bad leadership, and how to achieve one’s own personal leadership success.

Investors in real estate funds may be confused by some of the regulatory changes occurring in the United States — particularly those requiring advisers to register with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). At the most basic level, investors may wonder whether they should care about what’s going on and how much time it will take to figure out what really matters. All of this is part of the fallout from the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the US law passed in 2010.

The 9.0 magnitude East Japan Great Earthquake that occurred on 11 March 2011, 373 kilometres north-east of Tokyo, was the fourth largest earthquake in the world since 1900. A massive tsunami that followed the earthquake caused tremendous damage as well as a crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station near the coast in northern Japan. The immediate impact of the disasters on the economy was negative. Supply was disrupted and spending fell. However, it is expected that there will also be a positive boost to the economy as rebuilding gets underway.

Daily reports of downgrades and rumours of defaults in Europe all bring to mind the frightening fall of the global financial system that began three years ago with the collapse of Lehman Bros on 15 September 2008. It feels like a “slasher” movie sequel — with an intensely scary set-up, an early victim or two, all ending in a bloody mess. This is a film we have seen before and don’t want to see again.

Risk is one of those elements of the real estate world that, more often than not, is viewed from the rearview mirror. In many ways, it is similar to hearing a big THUMP while driving down the road. The first thing you do is look in the mirror to see what you’ve just hit (hopefully it’s nothing more than the neighbour’s dog that’s been keeping you awake for the past two months). Risk is defined by three simple questions: What is it? Who owns it? What are you doing about it? The answer to the last question is, in turn, a byproduct of the answer to the first two questions.

Pan-European real estate investment manager AEW Europe has raised a further €176 million for Fondis, its French core retail fund.