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Jon Lekander is the new chief investment officer at Aberdeen Property Investors.

Guy Ratcliffe, executive director, Morgan Stanley

Local banks have finally started to take the mortgage market seriously. After decades of high interest rates that made residential lending impossible, they are slowly branching out into what could be an enormous market. Chloe Hayward reports on the challenges.

Prupim, the UK-based real estate investment arm of M&G, has taken steps to further its sustainability efforts. The manager has teamed up with Royal & SunAlliance to provide Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) for Prupim’s entire property portfolio, thought to be an industry first.

The doom and gloom in the US is in stark contrast to the joy and boom in Russia, where there’s an overwhelmingly bullish tone across all segments of the real estate market. Guy Norton looks at the formula for success employed by two leading Russian developers.

Europe’s retailers are between a rock and a hard place. Activist investors are pushing them to separate their vast property assets and realize value in the short term when the evidence suggests companies that continue to hold the freehold to their properties get higher returns in the long term. But UK supermarket group J Sainsbury could have found a solution for retailers in a joint venture with UK real estate company Land Securities – Harvest Partnership – announced in November.

Aberdeen Property Investors has teamed up with Swedish insurer Folksam to create a pooled fund structure open only to companies within the Folksam Group. Aberdeen plans to roll out this new type of instrument for indirect property investments to other large multinational companies with separate pension plans.

JPMorgan is building its French and Italian real estate structured finance business with a string of new hires, all taken from ABN Amro.

Wachovia Securities has appointed four managing directors to run its new integrated real estate platform.

Spirits were high at the Euromoney/Liquid Real Estate awards dinner held on September 25 at the Four Seasons. The event brought award winners from around the globe to London, with more than 200 in attendance. Simon Brady, Euromoney’s managing director, acted as host and presented the awards. The big winners on the night were Jones Lang LaSalle, CB Richard Ellis, Morgan Stanley, Eurohypo, ProLogis China, NBK and Clifford Chance. Paul Zenon, the comedian and magician, supplied his own special brand of after-dinner entertainment, simultaneously thrilling and terrifying guests. Playing cards and doves flew around the stage as he set guests’ garments alight and spun a pint of Newcastle Brown Ale around his head. The party lasted into the small hours, with guests chatting at the bar and taking to the stage for a dance.

German residential properties have fallen out of favour with some of the big-name US private equity investors. Is their withdrawal a signal of market decline or is there still value to be had? Duncan Wood reports.

AIG Global Real Estate is one of the largest and most prolific investors in emerging markets. Now that Brazil, Russia, India and China are the focus of almost every big investor and developer, the US-based firm is far ahead of the pack. The group’s president, Kevin Fitzpatrick, speaks to Rachel Wolcott about AIG’s history in emerging markets and why enthusiasm for these markets might be overdone.