Opportunites for International Intermediaries

"A market almost twice as big as the U.S. local market has just opened for business. 
It's called Europe." 
Sir Peter Bonfield
British Telecommunications


International

Currently, most commercial real estate electronic intermediaries appear to be focusing mainly on the US market.  This presents an opportunity for a new or existing electronic intermediary to centralize global commercial property listings on one site.  The need for information from other areas is evident by the comment made by Sam Zell, Chairman and CEO of Equity & Financial Management, at the recent Transact '99 conference:
 "We're spoiled with information in this country. Call Buenos Aires and try to find out how much Class A office space there is. No one knows. We know because we sent a bunch of guys down there to count it." 
However, lack of technical infrastructure and issues dealing with clearly established and enforced property rights in areas such as developing countries may not make it profitable to incorporate listings from all countries right now.  The best market to start with appears to be Europe.  

Europe
Two factors have combined to make Europe a prime target in the international arena. These two factors are the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the rapid adoption and expansion of telecommunications and Internet technologies.

With the launching of an unified economy, citizens are now traveling to other countries to find jobs, start companies, and buy real property including commercial space.  While people have always had the ability to do these things, the barriers to do so are now significantly lower and the opportunities are open to many more people.

Additionally, the desire to increase the use of technology to keep European industries competitive has fostered a variety of programs both government-funded and private.  One example is the ESPIRIT program establish by the European Commission which sent 200 SMEs to participate in the "Electronic Commerce and Multimedia Technologies" conference held in the US.  Another example is British Telecommunications providing every person in Britain with a free email address and signing a deal with Microsoft for WebTV to open up more opportunities for tele-shopping and tele-banking.

The attractiveness of the European market may be contributing factors to the recent purchase of three real estate operations based in the UK.  In 1988, US based Insignia/ESG purchased the United Kingdom operations of the Richard Ellis Group for $81.5 million; Chicago-based LaSalle Partners purchased London-based Jones Lang Wootton; and New-york-based Cushman & Wakefield purchased London-based Healey & Baker for $117.2  million. 

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