The past few months have been very busy for ULI and its European members. Our 17th ULI Europe Annual Conference in Paris was amongst our most suc­cessful yet, attracting over 500 industry leaders from 24 different countries, making it one of the highest attendanc­es we have seen since the start of the economic downturn in 2008.

The mood of the conference was one of cautious optimism. No one was expecting market conditions to improve rapidly, but there is an increasing confidence amongst Europe’s real estate leadership that there are meaningful investment opportunities for those with the expertise and access to capital.

The same positive mood was also present at this year’s MIPIM conference. ULI’s activities were mostly focused around the work we undertake with cities. We  co-hosted events with the cities of Hamburg and Stuttgart as well as participating in a debate on new growth and investment strategies in partnership with the OECD and the cities of Amsterdam, Barcelona, Hamburg and Manchester. One of the highlights of our conference was the annual ULI MIPIM dinner, which was kindly hosted by Alex Otto of ECE.

Our 14 National Councils across Europe have already hosted over 70 local market events this year and we are pleased to welcome three newly appointed National Council Chairs in keeping with our standard succession pattern. Sigrid Duhamel takes over as Chair of ULI France from Erik Sondén, Rudy Stroink succeeds Gerard Groener as Chair of ULI Netherlands and Andy Martin will assume responsibility for ULI UK from Marc Mogull in July. We are very grateful to our outgoing Chairs for their exceptional work and dedication and wish our new Chairs every success.

We also recently hosted a one-day conference with the European Investment Bank at Wragge & Co’s offices in Birmingham. The event assessed the new tools and techniques for financing infrastructure and regeneration in Europe’s regional cities. The conference included a number of high profile speakers including Eugenia Kazamaki-Ottersten (pictured) and Brian Field from the EIB and Sir Albert Bore, Leader of Birmingham City Council.

Our attention now turns to our Real Estate Trends Conference which will take place in London on 19th June at The Crystal – Siemens’ innovative urban sustainability centre. This year’s conference focuses on the major changes the real estate industry faces in terms of sustainability, housing, infrastructure, finance and technology.