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Cross-Border Acquisitions Drop in U.S. in 2017, Canada Leads Investors
Cross-border acquisitions of U.S. commercial property dropped by almost one-quarter in 2017, and that’s a number Real Capital Analytics (RCA) notes outpaced the decline in activity by domestic capital sources. RCA’s latest U.S. Cross-Border Investment Compendium shows deals by domestic investors were down only 3% year-over-year in 2017, versus a 23% year-over-year decline for cross-border investors.
RCA’s Jim Costello says, despite the pullback in cross-border deal activity, these investors still represented 11% of all direct acquisitions in the U.S. for 2017. He points out that this level can be viewed as a return to normality; over the long term cross-border investment has represented 10% of the market.
While recent headlines seem to point to stepped-up Chinese restrictions on outbound capital flows as being a reason for decreased cross-border investments in the U.S., RCA’s Costello notes that China was still the No. 3 source of investment activity in 2017, with 9.8% of total volume. Canadian investors actually returned to a position they’ve traditionally held atop the rankings, accounting for 34.1% of total volume, and Singaporean investors were the second largest with 15.6%.
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