Issuers and investors adopt REIT approach

Real estate investment trusts have helped to drive development of the asset class in countries such as the US and Japan. Now a European-wide market is ready for take off. Helen Avery reports.

Zell: Growth of REITs is being
driven by the desire for income
investments rather than growth

SAM ZELL HAS good reason to be positive about public real estate investment trusts (REITs). They’ve helped make him a billionaire. Since establishing US opportunity investment company Equity Group Investments in 1968, Zell has built up four REITs that have made him the US’s largest landlord, with 125 million square feet of office space and 225,000 apartments in the US. The US adopted REIT legislation back in 1960, but it wasn’t until 12 years ago that the market started to take off.

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