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The Daily Ten – CBRE launches $400 million SPAC, Zillow & Redfin stock surge, Covid vaccine won’t help right away, Airline & Casino stocks soar…

November 10, 2020by Steve NsonNews

The Daily Ten – CBRE launches $400 million SPAC, Zillow & Redfin stock surge, Covid vaccine won’t help right away, Airline & Casino stocks soar…

November 10, 2020 by Steve Nson
CBRE-Blank-Check-Company.jpg
Tuesday, November 10th, 2020

The Daily Ten

1. CBRE latest real estate firm to hop on SPAC bandwagon | The Real Deal

Firm will launch $400M special-purpose acquisition company

Another major real estate firm is hopping on the SPAC bandwagon.

CBRE, the world’s largest real estate services firm, has formed a blank-check company, called CBRE Acquisition Holdings. The new special-purpose acquisition company is seeking to “identify and acquire a privately held company with significant growth potential” for a merger or acquisition, according to a regulatory filing. It’s aiming for a valuation of up to $400 million in an initial public offering.

“We believe we will be able to leverage the advantages that CBRE holds by virtue of its industry-leading position to not only source highly attractive acquisition candidates but also support the acquired company’s future growth,” the IPO filing states.

The new SPAC will be led by Bob Sulentic, president and CEO of CBRE Group, and William Concannon, CBRE’s global group president.

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2. Simply put, people want to move’: Zillow and Redfin rebound as U.S. housing market surges again | GeekWire

The U.S. housing market is making a comeback — and that’s good news for online real estate giants Zillow Group and Redfin.

Both Seattle-based companies exceeded analyst expectations last week for their fiscal third quarter earnings. They are riding a trend of increased home ownership driven in part by record-low mortgage rates. The housing market has also bounced back after stalling when COVID-19 hit the U.S. in March.

Demand is high while supply remains scarce. Existing home sales were up 9.4% in September compared to August, and up more than 20% year-over-year, according to the National Association of Realtors. Home prices were up 15% year-over-year last month, while active listings fell 29% last month to an all-time low, according to Redfin.

The shift to remote work is also giving people more flexibility for where they live, in what Zillow CEO Rich Barton calls “The Great Reshuffling.”

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3. Rising Mortgage Rates Are Squeezing Home Buyers in the U.K. | Bloomberg

With the pandemic limiting lenders’ capacity to deal with a surge in demand, experts offer advice for potential owners who are on a budget.

British home buyers on a budget face a frustrating puzzle: The Bank of England has kept interest rates at a record low 0.1%, yet mortgage lenders have been driving their own rates up.

Demand for homes is high right now. That’s in part because the government temporarily scrapped a related levy — known as stamp duty — in July. Sales soon soared to their highest level in over a decade. Prices posted their biggest annual increase since 2015 in October.

But lenders’ capacity to deal with this surge has been limited by the Covid pandemic. Their staff can’t process as many mortgages as usual, and they can’t take on as much risk in today’s economic climate. As a result, the average rate on two-year fixed-rate mortgages rose .44 percentage points between July and November, from 1.99% to 2.43%, according to Moneyfacts, a price-comparison company. At the same time, lenders have been taking products off the market, particularly those used by budget buyers with smaller deposits.

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4. The Digital Nomads Did Not Prepare for This | The New York Times

They moved to exotic locales to work through the pandemic in style. But now tax trouble, breakups and Covid guilt are setting in.

For a certain kind of worker, the pandemic presented a rupture in the space-time-career continuum. Many Americans were stuck, tied down by children or lost income or obligations to take care of the sick. But for those who were unencumbered, with steady jobs that were doable from anywhere, it was a moment to grab destiny and bend employment to their favor.

Their logic was as enviable as it was unattainable for everyone else: If you’re going to work from home indefinitely, why not make a new home in an exotic place? This tiny cohort gathered their MacBooks, passports and N95 masks and became digital nomads.

They Instagrammed their workdays from empty beach resorts in Bali and took Zoom meetings from tricked-out camper vans. They made balcony offices at cheap Tulum Airbnbs and booked state park campsites with Wi-Fi. They were the kind of people who actually applied to those remote worker visa programs heavily advertised by Caribbean countries. And occasionally they were deflated.

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5. Dr. Scott Gottlieb, Pfizer director and ex-FDA chief, cautions Covid vaccine won’t help right away | CNBC

Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Monday the U.S. will still have to experience “the hardest stretch” of the coronavirus pandemic without the benefits of a vaccine, despite news from Pfizer that its candidate is more than 90% effective.

“The vaccine is really a 2021 event in terms of when it’s going to provide protective immunity to that initial tranche” of recipients, Gottlieb said on “Squawk Box,” shortly after the Pfizer announcement. “Then in terms of when it would be widely available, I think the hope still is … you could have a vaccine broadly maybe the end of the second quarter, maybe into the third quarter. You’re looking at having the vaccine available in time for the fall 2021 Covid season.”

Earlier Monday, U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced that the vaccine it’s developing with German firm BioNTech is more than 90% effective in preventing Covid-19 for those who had no evidence of previously being infected.

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6. PATRIZIA Expands into North American PropTech VC Market | New York CityBizlist

PATRIZIA AG, a leading partner for global real assets, has entered into a strategic partnership with the North American PropTech venture capital firm, Camber Creek, by participating in the final close of its Camber Creek Fund III. Camber Creek’s latest PropTech fund was oversubscribed and closed with USD 155 million (circa EUR 131 million). Its focus is on PropTech companies across the real estate value chain including construction, development, asset management and leasing.

By investing in Camber Creek, PATRIZIA has expanded its global innovation footprint which now spans three continents: Europe, Asia and the Americas. The latest move into the North American PropTech market further strengthens the company’s leading role in transforming the real estate industry, enabling full coverage of all key geographies and sectors in real estate technology.

Dr Manuel Käsbauer, Chief Technology & Innovation Officer at PATRIZIA, said: “With our strategic investment in Camber Creek we are securing our early access to future technologies and innovation hubs in one of the most dynamic global technology markets. Our partnership with Camber Creek will further help us identify the best solutions that enable advanced services and better investment choices for our clients.”

Jeffrey Berman, a General Partner at Camber Creek, said: “We are excited to be collaborating with PATRIZIA as a key player in real estate innovation. The entrepreneurial and future oriented spirit of PATRIZIA together with their strategic focus on cutting edge and industry-transformational technology, makes them an ideal limited partner for us.”

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7. Airline and casino stocks soar in Asia-Pacific on the back of coronavirus vaccine hopes | CNBC

SINGAPORE — Airline and casino stocks in Asia-Pacific surged on Tuesday, following their peers overnight on Wall Street as investors reacted to a major positive coronavirus vaccine development from Pfizer and BioNTech.

Travel restrictions have pummeled the airlines and entertainment sectors, both of which depend on tourism revenue. News about a potential vaccine boosted optimism that the global economy could recover and “return to normal” sooner than previously anticipated.

“Your hotel stocks, casinos, airlines, all of those really are … now back in play,” David Bailin, chief investment officer at Citi Private Bank, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Tuesday.

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8. Simon Property CEO says mall owners treated ‘unfairly,’ as El Paso location shut with Covid cases on the rise | MSN

Simon Property Group was asked this past weekend to close its Cielo Vista Mall in El Paso, Texas, again, as Covid-19 cases in the area are on the rise, Chief Executive David Simon said Monday.

On Oct. 7, the biggest mall owner in America had finally reopened all of its properties that had been forced to shut due to the pandemic, the company said. The last to reopen was in Los Angeles county. But, with the closure of Cielo Vista, another round of shutdowns could be looming.

Outside of this closure, Simon said all its U.S. malls and outlet centers are reopen, and traffic continues to improve each month.

El Paso County announced at the end of October that it would shutter all nonessential businesses for two weeks in an effort to curb the recent rise of Covid-19 cases, which has been overwhelming local hospitals.

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9. Local Logic raises $8 million Series A for PropTech Platform | BetaKit

Montreal-based proptech and artificial intelligence (AI) startup Local Logic has secured $8 million CAD in Series A financing. This latest round brings the company’s total funding to date to $10 million CAD.

The round was led by Toronto-based GroundBreak Ventures. Other participants included Shadow Ventures, BDC Capital, Jones Boys Ventures, Cycle Capital, and Desjardins Capital. The funding, which consisted of equity and debt, will be used by Local Logic to double its current 26-person team over the next year. It also plans to increase its footprint in the United States in terms of clients and data as well as the depth of insights offered on the platform.

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10. China’s ‘Uber for Trucks’ Raising $1.7 Billion Ahead of IPO Next Year | WSJ

Full Truck Alliance is valued at $10 billion before the capital raise, according to people familiar with the matter

Full Truck Alliance, a Chinese startup that provides an Uber-like service for the trucking industry, is raising about $1.7 billion to further expand its business ahead of an initial public offering next year, according to people familiar with the matter.

The company, which counts Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp. and Alphabet Inc. among its many high-profile backers, is being valued at $10 billion before the capital raise, the people said. Fidelity International and private-equity firm Permira are among the investors that are planning…

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