1. Zimbabwe: Hotel operator seeks stock delisting
African Sun, the largest hotel firm in Zimbabwe, plans to delist from the country’s Victoria Falls Stock Exchange. The move comes as revenue rose in the latest fiscal year and as company officials expressed optimism about tourism prospects for the southern African country.
African Sun’s board has approved plans to take the company private, with shareholders scheduled to vote on the matter in March. A company statement said the move is part of an ongoing strategic review “aimed at enhancing operational flexibility” and meeting other long-term objectives. The Harare, Zimbabwe-based company is also in negotiations to sell its 83-room Caribbea Bay Resort to Zimbabwe’s state-owned Public Service Pension Fund.
2. UK: Brookfield office leasing breaks London rent record
Brookfield Properties completed a top-floor leasing to a cryptocurrency firm at its One Leadenhall development, at what is believed to be the highest office rent ever paid in the city of London.
Market sources close to the transaction told CoStar News that Brookfield finalized the leasing of the 32nd-floor space at a rent of £160 per square foot. The floor comprises 4,200 square feet of offices as well as a large roof terrace. Brookfield as of January had fully leased the 35‑story tower, among the area’s largest office properties built in the past few years, after a 90,000-square-foot transaction with cryptocurrency group Ripple that spanned floors 24 and upward.
3. France: Shein plans shops inside department stores
Online retail giant Shein said it planned to begin opening new brick-and-mortar shops by month’s end inside several locations of department store operator BHV, known formerly as Galeries Lafayette.
Planned openings in Limoges, Angers, Dijon, Grenoble and Reims are the result of a partnership unveiled in October by the operator of BHV — Société des Grands Magasins, co-founded by Frédéric Merlin — and Singapore-based Shein. The rollout will be gradual for new Shein store-within-a-store spaces, ranging from 500 to 1,000 square meters depending on the city, Shein and SGM said in a statement.
4. Germany: Investors get refinancing for landmark Frankfurt office building
A consortium of investors led by AGC Equity Partners Investment Management has secured long-term refinancing of about €513 million for The Squaire, a prominent office property built atop a train station near the Frankfurt airport. Consortium officials said the refinancing for one of Germany’s largest office properties was completed through a commercial mortgage backed securities transaction.
A prior loan on the property was due last year but extended through March 2026 before the latest CMBS transaction, intended to enable a longer-term payback at a challenging time for office properties. The latest refinancing is slated to run through June 2028 but could be extended through March 2035 if financial conditions are met.
5. Canada: Edmonton posts sole property investment increase among big cities
Edmonton, Alberta, was the only major Canadian city to post an annual rise in commercial property investment in 2025, according to real estate services firm JLL.
JLL’s latest annual Canadian outlook report said Edmonton hit a record $3.3 billion in deal volume for the year, “driven by a red-hot multifamily sector” that accounted for nearly half of the total. Overall, 2025 commercial property investment sales in Canada totaled $46.2 billion, down 5% from 2024 and 29% below the 2022 peak, according to JLL.
6. US: Cushman & Wakefield rolls out AI tool to track real estate demand
Cushman & Wakefield unveiled what it bills as the industry’s first tool to track artificial intelligence’s effects on commercial real estate demand, as brokerages race to embrace efficiency and opportunities related to the technology.
The real estate service firm’s new “AI Impact Barometer” uses economic, capital markets and property indicators to help clients track how AI is influencing demand for data centers, warehouses and offices, and where investment is flowing. Executives for CBRE, JLL and Cushman, the world’s three largest property services firms, have pushed back on the notion that AI poses a threat to the brokerages.
This report was compiled from CoStar’s news publications in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France and Germany.