In good company

Most major real estate companies in Western Europe are members of the EPRA (European Public Real Estate Association), which aims at promoting, developing and representing the real estate market.
Now the organisation is open to the idea of companies from Central Europe joining

There are currently only 140 EPRA members and these are renowned companies, either directly or indirectly involved in real estate. Apart from having a good reputation, one of the requirements for inclusion in the EPRA is being listed on one of the European stock exchanges, as the organisation has set up a crucial index which displays the current state of the real estate market.

EPRA's work of art
The EPRA/NAREIT index is the organisation's foremost achievement since it was founded in Amsterdam in 1999.
"We launched the index in June 2000," says Nick van Ommen, head of EPRA. "And soon after we made it global via Euronext, an organisation which links the stock exchanges in Amsterdam, Paris, Brussels and Lisbon and LIFFE [International Financial Futures and Options Exchange]."
The index is currently used by investors worldwide. (For more information on this subject, go to the "Investor's signpost" article on p. 50).

Commissions and awards
The EPRA operates on a number of committees which deal with information and 'best practices', and a new idea is to create another specialising in tax matters, a so-called Tax Transparency Committee.
The EPRA gathers every year at an annual conference, which in 2003 has been planned for September 18 to 19th, and which will see the first EPRA Best Performance Award ceremony, sponsored by LaSalle Investment Management. Another award which will be announced again this year, and which last year went to IVG Holding, is the EPRA Annual Report Award.
"At the beginning of our work we focused on countries whose real estate markets were the most developed. Now, in the fourth year, we'd also like to welcome Eastern European companies," says Nick van Ommen.