Interview with Edmund Craston, PATRIZIA
How has the pandemic affected your relationship with investors?
We’ve communicated extensively with investors. That was a lesson the smarter players in the industry learned through the financial crisis.
How might fund managers prepare for future shock events, following the Covid crisis?
Fund managers are often asked to think about business continuity planning and disaster recovery planning. I think most will have passed the test with flying colours. We can function without going into the office. We’ve established resilience to physical inconvenience.
What investment strategies are likely to dominate in 2021?
I think that definitely there will be a number of people following core strategies, but not every type of core strategy. There is capital available for core strategies in certain sectors and countries. Residential and logistics are popular and likely to stay that way. Some people may be nervous about pricing in residential and logistics, but there is still value in and capital for both these categories.
What are the main challenges for investors in the UK and Europe in terms of availability of suitable products, costs and current market conditions?
The principal challenge is uncertainty. Economies have been hit hard by Covid and still everyone wants to work out what the outlook is economically. We might see riskier capital being deployed in 2021 when people see areas that have been affected priced down and there is an opportunity for recovery.
What will be the true impact of Brexit now that we have some certainty about the relationship with the EU?
The underlying feeling is that while some people predicted from the start that lots of businesses would move away from the UK and others that predicted it will be fine and dandy, the reality will be somewhere in the middle.
Edmund Craston, Head of Fund Management at PATRIZIA
Read other interviews from this study:
