James A. Stolpestad: It was a wonderful week! It was fun to spend time with my colleagues in Munich; it's a great team. Everybody is very supportive of what we are doing in the US. And I think we'll be a great resource, together, moving forward.
"It's possible to outperform the market"
What were your first impressions of Allianz Real Estate?
Tell us about the office in New York?
Stolpestad: Well we have a small group. It'll just be four of us initially, and we're in mid-town Manhattan. We will be focusing on investing, managing those investments and working with our colleagues in Munich to support the activities throughout the US.
What are some of the key trends in the US real estate market?
Stolpestad: Probably the two most important things happening in the US now are first, the recovery of the markets. We've gone through a very difficult period of time over the past two years and the markets are showing green shoots. We're seeing the equity markets improve, we're seeing the investment markets improve and we expect that to continue.
The second most important thing is that we continue to experience the deleveraging of the overall system, including the real estate markets. So there's a lot of debt in the system from the boom, and we are working through that. And those two trends are the principal things we need to be thinking about as we consider our investments going forward.
James A. Stolpestad, CEO of Allianz Real Estate of America
You are known in the real estate market as a retail expert. Would you share your thoughts with us for the industry and for Allianz?
Stolpestad: The retail sector performed very well during the recent upswing of the market, because it benefitted from population growth, income growth and the expansion of credit. As the market has now changed, those tailwinds become headwinds and it will be a more subdued environment for retail going forward.
However, the retail sector is a very specialized sector and benefits from good quality management and it's possible to outperform the overall market if you intelligently invest money with partners who have the expertise in particular parts of the retail market. And I hope I can bring some of that expertise to the Group.
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