MORNING NEWS: The UK gets pitching

Good morning. Here’s your daily round-up of the latest news and views from EG and a collection of industry-relevant headlines from the nationals. As the MIPIM conference in Cannes officially kicks off, there is a clear message coming out from the UK: the country is well and truly open for business and it is the best place to invest your cash. Chairman of the City of London Corporation’s planning and transportation committee Shravan Joshi put it succinctly in his exclusive interview with EG. “The clear message we need to get across to everyone – the entire supply chain, investors, developers, anchor tenants – is that the City of London is investible,” he says. “It’s investment-grade-ready for money to flow in, for construction to occur.” But don’t think that means Joshi is only looking inwards at the capital’s Square Mile. There’s more to play for than that, he says. As a founding member of Opportunity London, a public-private partnership set up to to attract money into London, the City Corporation now has to think bigger and reach across borough boundaries. “You’re getting a coalition of the willing to write the London story,” he tells EG. And now appears to be the perfect time to be writing that story and publishing it for all to see, as according to the latest Emerging Trends report from the ULI and PwC, confidence is returning and investors are getting ready to spend again. Cautiously. But if you really want to attract that investment, says the report, you need to make sure your assets or your place can fulfil the new criteria investors use when selecting where to put their cash. Investor behaviour is increasingly about “the three Ds”, said the report: demographics, digitalisation and decarbonisation. That focus is bolstering the investment case for housing, logistics and alternative sectors, notably data centres.  “Through our conversations with market participants, we identified a strong belief that a long-term, thematic approach, particularly centred around decarbonisation, opens up a new world of potential quasi-real estate products for investors,” says PwC’s Gareth Lewis. “This includes the expectation of increased investment in sectors such as new energy infrastructure, which continues to be viewed as holding the greatest overall investment and development potential, according to survey participants in Europe.” And if you’re in Cannes today, there are two big events you just can’t miss. First, make sure you head to the Avison Young pavilion for 2.30pm as EG launches its UK Cities Investor Guide with a special panel discussion around the great workplace reset. We’ll be asking whether the CBD still exists and, if not, what cities and towns should be doing to bring growth back to their centres. You can do your pre-read here and find out all the details for the session here. And, of course, no Tuesday at MIPIM is complete without watching the riders who have pedalled all the way from London to Cannes cycle into town. This year they will be ending their 1,500km journey at Square de Verdun, conveniently at around 3.30pm, giving you just enough time to get there after our great workplace reset session. All of the news from EG, plus a selection of headlines from the nationals: Regional REIT actively considering debt and equity raisesLandsec to raise £300m in bond dealThe great workplace resetSquare Mile planning boss on ‘de-risking’ London’s investment storyArt-Invest gets green light for West End redevelopmentReal estate is at a ‘pivot point’, says global reportLeeds planners put Scarborough’s £128m industrial park proposals on radarLondon Waterloo station masterplan unveiledReal estate’s top tips for making it at MIPIMIn pictures: The penultimate day’s riding for the Cycle to MIPIMDaughter sues mother and brother for half of £26m homes portfolio (£)Superdry in talks with Hilco over new loan (£)Chinese developer Vanke in the spotlight after Moody’s downgrade (£)Trump’s legal woes add new twist to Wall Street tower’s tangled story (£)