Wilkinson Contributes to Kaufland’s High Five

Earlier this month Greenman CEO, Johnnie Wilkinson, joined leading experts from the real estate sector to share their thoughts on the future of retail real estate in a post-Corona age.

In January Kaufland published “Footfall-anchors in the Online Age – 10 Reasons for a Stable Future”, which Dr Angelus Bernreuther discussed at Greenman OPEN’s 2020 event in February. It examined the changing environment of the retail sector through the rise of digitisation, demographic changes, sustainability and other factors. These trends were given a new perspective considering the pandemic and social distancing, leading to the follow-up publication, “Footfall-Anchors Post Corona – 5 Propositions for the New Future of Retail”.

In the study, Johnnie discusses how, for fifteen years, Greenman has focused solely on food anchored real estate in Germany. This sector-specific focus has helped develop significant market knowledge, awareness, insights, and most importantly strong relationships with our tenants. Germany’s swift and comprehensive reaction to the pandemic, coupled with the country’s approach to lockdown, comforted many of our investors, highlighting Germany’s continuing appeal as a safe haven for investment.

Food retail real estate as an asset class has come of age during the pandemic, performing steadily and consistently throughout a time of great upheaval. Grocery anchor tenant’s underline the attractiveness of this asset class, now classed as “essential” retailers and seen as “recession-proof”.

Finally, Johnnie discusses the opportunities that have arisen post-Corona for food retail. Explaining how the pandemic has served to accelerate the rate of evolution in the food retail real estate sector, highlighting some of the cracks in the online delivery model with some companies struggling to meet extra delivery demand or logistical processes struggling to deal with stock management. The pandemic has also forced us to begin rethinking how we use the non-essential retail space in our portfolio and how we generate income for our investors. You can read more on this in Johnnie’s recent Investment Week article here.

Free to download (German PDF with English Summary)