Paris / Île-de-France is home to Europe’s top micro-locations for efficient logistics distribution, according to the inaugural release of the Paths of Distribution score, published today by LaSalle Investment Management (“LaSalle”). The innovative, granular new research gives the ability to compare logistics locations at a micro, market, country and pan-European level, with extensive flexibility for understanding, benchmarking and ranking locations at both micro and macro scale.
The Netherlands, thanks to its immediate access to Europe’s major consumption centres and having one of the crossroads of trade within and into Europe, was identified as the strongest-performing country. The port city of Rotterdam, the key gateway of global trade, ranked second and is joined in the top 20 regional markets by local rivals Amsterdam and the North Brabant region of Breda and Tilburg. Germany, the second-best performing country, provided another five of Europe’s top 20 markets, all in the west of the country, establishing this corner of north-western Europe as a hotspot for manufacturing and transportation. The UK, although separated from continental European logistics markets, placed third in the country standings, with Greater London its highest-ranked logistics market, although the West and East Midlands, the North-West of England (surrounding Manchester) and Kent all placed in the top 20 thanks to their strong infrastructure.
Belgium was fourth best performing, with the Antwerp and Brussels markets ranking seventh and seventeenth respectively. The wider Milan region also scored highly in the rankings, despite comparatively low investment volumes historically, while the Veneto-Verona corridor was another Italian market which scored well, with domestic consumption being the primary driver. Likewise, in Poland, the biggest winners were the Katowice-Krakow corridor and Lodz – ranking above the capital Warsaw – both growing notably in recent years and benefitting from investment in infrastructure and labour availability. LaSalle’s analysis shows there is a positive correlation between Paths of Distribution and logistics take-up, making a connection between current demand and these locations’ potential.
Micro-location and methodology
The research is the first of its kind, and takes an innovative, granular approach to its methodology, breaking the continent down into 158,445 10-kilometre hexagons. Each micro-location is scored across four key pillars of manufacturing output, consumer spend, infrastructure quality and the proximity to skilled labour. The model not only factors in demand, but also considers the cost from an operator’s perspective of meeting that demand, using an extensive set of region-to-region road freight transport cost metrics, along with a random forest machine learning model evaluating how extensive and accessible the road network is at the most granular level.
The top scoring micro-location hexagons are in the Eastern Crescent that semi-circles Paris, stretching from the area surrounding the Charles de Gaulle airport in the north, moving south-east through Noisy-le-Grand, then continuing south covering Créteil. This sub-market of Paris benefits from excellent connectivity into Paris, as well as to the wider French market, and further north and east.
Logistics distribution scoring is unlike other city rankings because it is about far more than central cities – entire regions and all the micro-locations within them are potentially efficient places for distribution. So the LaSalle team took a new approach filling in all the gaps in the regions of Europe between cities. The vibrant maps showing location scores across all of Europe highlight the corridors, conurbations, clusters, and crescents which define the optimal locations for modern logistics.
Petra Blazkova, Head of Research & Strategy, Core & Core-Plus Capital, Europe at LaSalle, said: “With continued uncertainty around energy prices and supply chains being disrupted, cost uncertainty is high across the continent for logistics providers. Location is a key variable which distributors can still control, and so it is more important than ever: optimising your choice of location can help minimise exposure to these other risks and protect your supply chain. Today’s rankings demonstrate which areas are best for distributors to try to insulate themselves from those pressures. As investors in the sector, this new insight into the most resilient logistics markets in Europe informs our portfolio composition and asset management.”
The full top 20 logistics markets were as follows:
1 Paris / Île-de-France, France
2 Rotterdam, The Netherlands
3 Frankfurt-Mainz, Germany
4 Milan, Italy
5 Greater London, United Kingdom
6 Rhine-Ruhr, Germany
7 Antwerp, Belgium
8 West Midlands, United Kingdom
9 Madrid, Spain
10 Dortmund, Germany
11 Amsterdam, The Netherlands
12 East Midlands, United Kingdom
13 Stuttgart, Germany
14 North West England (Manchester), United Kingdom
15 North Brabant (Breda-Tilburg), The Netherlands
16 Karlsruhe-Mannheim corridor, Germany
17 Brussels, Belgium
18 Veneto-Verona corridor, Italy
19 Kent, United Kingdom
20 Barcelona, Spain
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About LaSalle Investment Management | Investing Today. For Tomorrow.
LaSalle Investment Management is one of the world’s leading real estate investment managers. On a global basis, LaSalle manages US$84.8 billion of assets in private and public real estate equity and debt investments as of Q2 2024. LaSalle’s diverse client base includes public and private pension funds, insurance companies, governments, corporations, endowments and private individuals from across the globe. LaSalle sponsors a complete range of investment vehicles, including separate accounts, open- and closed-end funds, public securities and entity-level investments.
For more information, please visit www.lasalle.com, and LinkedIn.
London (June 4, 2024) – LaSalle Investment Management, the global real estate investment manager, has provided a loan facility of €150 million through its flagship real estate debt fund, LREDS IV, to refinance a portfolio of 17 big-box logistics assets across Europe owned by Brookfield through its private real estate funds.
Brookfield has partnered with leading development managers Panattoni and Logistik Service to source opportunities, develop and lease the projects. The portfolio includes 17 projects across Sweden, Spain, Germany and Poland, split between six completed projects (five of which are fully let), four in development and seven consented plots. It focuses on grade-A high-specification logistics assets with a typical BREEAM rating of Very Good or Excellent.
David White, Head of LaSalle Real Estate Debt Strategies, said: “Working with a best-in-class sponsor in Brookfield and two top-tier development managers in Panattoni and Logistik Service means our facility is secured against some of the highest-quality assets and projects available in the European logistics market. Our team works to provide bespoke solutions to our borrower’s needs, and we are pleased to support such a high-quality logistics portfolio.”
Rohit Srivastava, Managing Director in Brookfield’s Real Estate Group, added: “We are pleased to work with LaSalle to complete this refinancing, which will support the continued growth of our portfolio of big-box logistics assets. The team were able to provide a bespoke financing package that addressed our requirements.”
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About LaSalle Investment Management | Investing Today. For Tomorrow.
LaSalle Investment Management is one of the world’s leading real estate investment managers. On a global basis, LaSalle manages almost US $87 billion of assets in private and public real estate equity and debt investments as of Q1 2024. LaSalle’s diverse client base includes public and private pension funds, insurance companies, governments, corporations, endowments and private individuals from across the globe. LaSalle sponsors a complete range of investment vehicles, including separate accounts, open- and closed-end funds, public securities and entity-level investments. For more information, please visit www.lasalle.com, and LinkedIn.
About LaSalle Debt Investments
LaSalle Debt Investments is part of LaSalle’s growing $US 10 billion Debt and Value-Add Strategies platform in Europe and invests in a diverse range of real estate credit solutions – spanning senior loans, whole loans, mezzanine, development finance, corporate finance, NAV facilities and preferred equity – with significant experience across various sectors, geographies, deal sizes and capital structures. Since launching the business line in 2010, LaSalle has been one of Europe’s most active alternative real estate debt providers with a long track record of lending to best-in-class sponsors.
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