Lize Griffiths, Partner and Deloitte Luxembourg Real Estate Leader;

Deloitte has announced that Luxembourg has been chosen as the location for the new EMEA Centre of Excellence for Real Estate Funds Corporate Services.

The financial sector has been subject to continuous change over the past years—the real estate fund industry being no exception. Developments in the regulatory landscape such as the introduction of the Luxembourg fund vehicle RAIF, swift advances in technology, and the adoption of a more sophisticated approach by investors have contributed to a more complex and challenging environment for real estate fund managers.

To address these market trends and to establish a central point of contact for real estate fund managers across Europe, Deloitte has chosen Luxembourg as the location for the new EMEA Centre of Excellence for Real Estate Funds Corporate Services.

Luxembourg is the flagship of asset management in Europe, including an above-average amount of real estate assets. It made perfect sense to establish the Center of Excellence at the heart of the business where our highly specialised and experienced professionals will centralise and drive Pan-European real estate fund assignments for our clients,” said Lize Griffiths, Partner and Deloitte Luxembourg Real Estate Leader. The team of fifty real estate fund professionals in Luxembourg will work closely with their colleagues from Deloitte member firms across Europe to ensure a consistent service delivery.

Real estate fund managers today are under high pressure as there is increasing demand from investors for more cost-efficient and high-quality products. Outsourcing non-core activities thus becomes more important in order to focus on core asset management. We will start there and provide corporate, tax compliance and accounting services that will enable our clients to better manage their costs and concentrate on what is important,” explained Alexandre Prost-Gargoz, Partner at Deloitte Luxembourg and Co-Leader of the new Center of Excellence together with his colleague and Partner, Karine Thil.

Following the global financial crisis ten years ago, investors were looking for asset diversification at a stable and durable return, and real estate assets rose in demand. Allocation to this type of assets is expected to further increase in the coming years.​