 Gulf Arab investors will spend more than $20 billion on international property acquisitions in 2008 as record oil revenue provides surplus cash, according to Jones Lang LaSalle Inc, the world's second-largest commercial real estate broker.
``In 2007, there was about $14.5 billion of direct investment in commercial-grade real estate in the 20 leading cities in the world,'' Blair Hagkull, managing director of Jones Lang LaSalle's operations in the Middle East and North Africa, said in a Jan. 13 interview in Dubai embargoed until today. That will probably increase by almost half in 2008, he said.
Gulf investors are buying stakes in real-estate and finance companies as the global credit crunch and the falling dollar drive down prices.
Private equity companies lead Gulf investors in buying property abroad. Over the past four years, Dubai's Istithmar PJSC has bought New York properties including 450 Lexington Avenue and the Knickerbocker Hotel at 6 Times Square, as well as the London's Adelphi building for $567 million. Bahrain's Investcorp Bank BSC bought 280 Park Avenue, New York, in November with Broadway Real Estate Partners, for $1.28 billion.
Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/ |
