With the meteoric rise of private wealth world wide, and the recent downturn of high tech stocks, direct investment in real estate has become an increasingly attractive proposition for high net worth investors. Private banks have set up ëfamily officesí and many investment banks have branched...

The paper endeavours to clarify the role of property as a financial asset in the evolving investment strategies of European banks. After a brief exposition of the theory of transaction cost economics the paper discusses the recent changes in the structure of European banking organisations and...