Mr. Schaich: Germany, as you just called out, only entered the REIT market almost three years ago. It was in June 2007 when the law was implemented after years of discussion. Since the end of 2007, there are just two REITs, one of which is Fair Value REIT, and also Alstria Office, from Hamburg. Since then, no other REIT has joined us so far, though a third German company is about to become a REIT. The only reason for that is the financial markets. Just after the law was passed, the markets went into turmoil, with the subprime crisis spilling over to Europe at that time and the capital markets really shutting down. So since then, nothing has happened so far. Being a REIT ourselves, of course we've been looking at the North American REIT industry that has suffered as well but was very successful in raising money last year. So that is something that we will look for in Germany as well. But it will take some time until the REIT industry in Germany will be as visible as it is in the States, or France or England, for example. With the implementation of the law, Germany has made a very big step forward to open the real estate market in Germany up for listed property and also for international institutional investors.
When we entered the market in 2007, we implemented a very special business model, which is, first of all, we are generalists in approach. We are not focused on just one type of use; we're not just an office investor, we also do retail and logistics. Fair Value has entered the market with a special business model by offering investors in closed-end, limited partnerships a swap for shares in the company, like an UPREIT structure. That has been unique so far in Germany. By that, we increased capital before we went public, which was in November of 2007. So we created the capital base of our company by making this offer to thousands of private investors to swap their units or interest in limited partnership investments for shares in the company, thereby swapping for a tradable asset. We have now total investments of 245 million euro, which is 80% based on participations in closed-end funds and 20% is direct investments in office properties that we purchased in 2007. It's a unique opportunity because in Germany there is a lot of indirect investment going on. Many private investors have used tax shelter programs and have used participations in closed-end limited partnerships to invest in commercial real estate in Germany, which is okay as long as you have tax shelters. But some years down the road, you want to have an exit. And that's not so easy because there is no market. The real estate market in Germany is huge - it's a big country - but if you look at the listed property sector, you don't find many companies. Along the industry of limited partnership, closed-end funds, there's 140 billion euro which has been invested over time. And that is a big market that we can tap, using this UPREIT structure to increase the listed property sector.
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