Sale and lease back

European commercial property sales and leasebacks are set to grow to about 30 billion euros a year as firms seek to unlock the value of real estate on their balance sheets.

"The market has probably at least doubled and will
probably triple over the next two years," John Wilson, a senior director
at the global property services firm CBRE, said. Wilson heads CB Richard
Ellis's Corporate Strategies Team for Europe, which structured HSBC's  sale and leaseback of its global headquarters
in London — the largest ever single corporate property asset sale in Europe at
1.1 billion pounds ($2.2 billion).

"We've studied all the big (European) corporates …
and we think there is about 3 trillion euros of real estate assets on the
balance sheet that can be transacted over time," he said.

Pharmaceutical and manufacturing companies are most likely
to do more sales and leaseback deals as they reorganize and move manufacturing
east to cheaper locations or seek to take advantage of higher property prices,
he said.

"Organizations that are in the Western economy — they
are pretty happy with what's going on. They are happy with their buildings …
but they actually want to take money out and give it back to shareholders or
protect themselves."