Seminar Information

Since the Sixties, the Belgian market is known as a very attractive shopping market with a high density of cities and shops. Throughout the years, many new shopping centres were built and Antwerp became one of the five most important fashion centres in the world, together with metropolitan cities like Paris, New York, London and Milan. Belgium is often used as a test market in Europe for many of the large fashion brands. Tommy Hilfiger Tailored, for example, opened its first European shop in Antwerp two years ago.
Even during the crisis, consumers did not significantly reduce their expenditure on shopping. Meanwhile, the demand for prime locations and shopping centres remained larger than the offer. Rental prices in Belgium are still attractive and do not seem to suffer from the economic recession. Compared to other countries, acquisition yields remain competitive. Belgium is still regarded as an interesting market for international investors.
In this seminar, these elements will be discussed by the speaker and the panel members.
 

About the Speaker

Roland Kahn founded Cool Cat in 1979. After the acquisition of different other retail companies he is now running about 190 Cool Cat, Wonder Women and America Today stores in five different countries: the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Dubai.
Roland Kahn was “Entrepreneur of the Year” in 2004 in The Netherlands.

About the Panel

The panel will be moderated by Patrick Tacq (CBRE).
Panel members are: Luc Plasman (ING Real Estate – President BLRW / CBLCC), Katrien Maes (S. Oliver), Eric Van Dyck (EMEA – board member Cushman & Wakefield), Dirk Adriaenssen ( Redevco Belgium), Pierre Iserbyt ( Foruminvest ); Wouter Torfs (Schoenen TORFS – President Retailforum )