Goodman Group, a global leading owner, developer and manager of industrial real estate, announces record operating results in Continental Europe at the close of its fiscal year, ending 30 June 2016. Goodman continued to demonstrate strong portfolio dynamics, signing lease agreements for 1.35 million m² of space across its existing portfolio. The Group also added 766,000m² of new supply and commenced the development of approximately 920,000m² of logistics space. Globally the Group increased its assets under managed to €23 billion, an increase of 13%.
The Group performed strongly across the three elements of its integrated own-develop-manage offering. In line with its global strategy, Goodman’s activities in Continental Europe were driven by its robust development activity, providing new high quality, well located logistics space largely to its own real estate investment vehicles, the largest being Goodman European Partnership (GEP). The acquisition of these completed developments by GEP were mostly funded through its asset disposal programme launched last year. Concurrently, Goodman’s in-house property services team maintained the strong performance of the overall portfolio, with 97% occupancy and a customer retention rate above 85%.
“The strong results over the fiscal year is a reflection of our unwavering dedication to quality and our strong customer focus,” said Philippe Van der Beken, Goodman Managing Director for Continental Europe. “Furthermore, our business has capitalised on strong market dynamics such as the growth in private consumption and ecommerce, and the search for operational efficiencies in warehousing and distribution. These drivers, coupled with our experience and the strengthening of our customer relationships, will be the foundation of our continued growth in Continental Europe.”
For the fifth consecutive year, Goodman has been named the top real estate developer in Europe by PropertyEU, which analyses development figures for the past three years. The positive trends that have enabled Goodman to secure this position continued throughout its 2016 fiscal year, by commencing the development of 919,652 m² of new logistics space. Among the 766,000m² of new space delivered to the market in the fiscal year, more than 80% of the space was dedicated to the automotive, retail, ecommerce, and transport and logistics sectors.
Notable projects include:
- + 70,000m² logistics centre for BMW in Germany
- + 68,000m² distribution centre for Carrefour in France
- + 62,000m² distribution centre for Home24 in Germany
- + 52,000m² turn-key development for Mobis in Belgium
Goodman is on track to bring over 600,000m² of new space to the market by the end of its current fiscal year, mainly for the retail, ecommerce, and transport and logistics sectors. Goodman also continues to maintain a low level of speculative development, which is currently below 10% and is solely in prime locations with high demand and low vacancy.
