Blood, sweat and REITs; Property funds in Germany.(real estate investment trusts)

Lawmakers think they have a working model

A HANDFUL of bankers and bureaucrats, in a land that all but shuts down in August, are racing to finish a draft law that could transform the German capital market. One estimate puts the potential value of listed real-estate investment trusts (REITs) at up to euro230 billion ($290 billion); a more conservative guess lies between euro30 billion and euro70 billion. By comparison, the market capitalisation of REITs in America, 46 years after they started, is $340 billion.

A REIT is a property investment fund which typically escapes direct ...

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