The Leader - March/April 2009 - (Page 36) C O RPORATE R E AL ESTATE R O UN DTABLE Corporate Real Estate’s Response to the Recession: Senior Executives Weigh in on the Economy’s Impact BY RICHARD KADZIS EADER recently sat with top executives in corporate real estate (CRE) from the industry’s demand and supply sides – each of them currently serving on the CoreNet Global Board of Directors - to talk about issues and challenges mainly surrounding the economy. Together with Commercial Property News magazine (CPN), we heard numerous examples of how CRE continues to add strategic value in a recessionary climate. CoreNet Global CEO Dr. Prentice Knight joined with CPN Editor Suzann Silverman to examine how CRE executives are responding to the global economic downturn. Panelists taking part in the November 2008 magazine roundtable held in Orlando continu- L ally linked the current tactical or survival focus to the long-term strategic agenda for CRE. CoreNet Global board members who took part in the panel were: - Chairman-elect Barry Varcoe, Director, Group Property, The Royal Bank of Scotland - Mark Gorman, Leader, Global Real Estate, Nortel - Bruce Ficke, Executive Vice President, Client Solutions, Cushman & Wakefield - Ed Noha, Managing Director, Jones Lang LaSalle ter of 2010 we’ll be out of this, but 2009 is going to be a tough year. Bruce Ficke: We saw the recession accelerate toward the end of 2008, so it will probably be mid-2010 before we come out of this. Ed Noha: This is not short term; this is not a shallow recession. It’s deep and is having global impact. LEADER/CPN: When do you see the recession ending? Barry Varcoe: The consensus view is we won’t come out of this until 2010. It all happened with more speed than we thought possible, because of the connectivity of the Mark Gorman: My most optimistic view is by the first quar2 0 0 9 THE LE ADE R 36 MARCH / APRIL
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