LONDON-Colliers International has hired Stuart La Frenais as divisional head of retail. The new position will take advantage of the recent boost in the European retail market.

La Frenais mostly recently was at Jones Lang LaSalle, where he was key in the company’s acquisition of the UK-based Churston Heard retail agency in 2008. A spokeswoman at JLL could not be reached for comment regarding La Frenais’ departure.

Tony Horrell, CEO at Colliers International, said the new hire’s knowledge of the UK retail market will greatly enhance the firm’s abilities. “The role is not a management role, but a client facing, business winning and transactional position,” he tells GlobeSt.com.

Horrell says the retail occupational market in Europe is showing great signs of improved performance. A recent study by Real Capital Analytics showed that retail investment grew the most out of all assets in the first quarter. “Investment of European retail property has hit its highest level for three years, clearly outperforming other sectors within the region's commercial real estate market,” he says. “Total investment in retail property rose 4% quarter-on-quarter to reach $17.3 billion. The UK and Germany together accounted for 70% of the investment total. This is boosted by large transactions such as the sale of the Trafford Centre Manchester for $2.7 billion. In Germany more retail investment transactions were done in Q1 2011 than in the whole of 2009.”

However, Horrell says it shouldn’t be forgotten that Europe is coming off a prolonged period of negative and/or flat growth.

“There are differences in performance between retail markets, with growth accelerating in some countries whilst others will continue to see more sluggish trading conditions,” Horrell says. “For example, Turkey and Russia where development and take-up of space had slowed, confidence has now returned to those markets. Other markets are finding it trickier, such as the UK, Spain and Ireland, where the development pipeline had almost ground to a halt during the recession, but a corner seems to have been turned, with developers and property owners re-evaluating previously parked development projects.”

 He says the recovery seems to be uneven across countries, as different nations are feeling different pressures dependent on their tax regime, job security and salary structure. Both value retailers and high, luxury retailers are thriving, but the mid-market arena is struggling, he says.

“Generally, the secondary market will remain weak in 2011 and will take significantly longer to recover,” Horrell says. “