THREE years ago, Amsterdam's mayor asked a roomful of pension fund managers if they'd be willing to invest in the regeneration of his city's notorious red light district. Two lonely hands went up.
The same question today might have triggered a bidding war. "In the current market, everyone in that room would have raised their hands," said Boris van der Gijp, a director at pension fund adviser Syntrus Achmea Real Estate & Finance, who attended the event. "But at that moment, there were not that many parties who would even assess this kind of deal."
In an era of record low interest rates and ageing populations, the most risk averse of institutional investors are now buying assets that would have once...
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