Au Mipim, les investisseurs courtisés pour réinvestir dans le logement

En pleine crise du logement en Europe et pour relancer la construction, les villes cherchent à attirer les grands investisseurs mondiaux qui semblent de plus en plus intéressés par le résidentiel, au salon international de l’immobilier à Cannes.Conférences sur le logement abordable, sur la démographie, présence de nombreux maires, sommet de “ré-investissement”, le “housing” est dans toutes les bouches au salon Mipim (marché international des professionnels de l’immobilier) qui affiche une volonté de rapprocher public et privé.Comme d’autres représentants de grandes villes venus séduire les grands argentiers présents, le maire de Londres Sadiq Khan a lancé “plus d’investissements s’il-vous-plaît dans ma ville”, lors d’un discours lundi devant un parterre de professionnels de l’immobilier. Les investisseurs institutionnels, tels que les assurances, les gérants d’actifs, les fonds de pension, “peuvent aider à combler ce fossé, par exemple en cas de problèmes chez les promoteurs nationaux, et fournir du stock de logement”, affirme Tom Leahy, directeur de la recherche en actifs réels en Europe de la société de services financiers MSCI. En France, les entreprises, liées au public, CDC Habitat et Action Logement ont massivement acheté des logements aux promoteurs en mal de clients en 2024.”Le problème actuellement est que l’immobilier dans son ensemble manque de nouveaux capitaux entrants” à cause de la hausse des taux d’intérêt qui a bousculé le marché, ajoute-t-il, interrogé par l’AFP.Les biens immobiliers et infrastructures gérés par des entreprises représentaient plus de 13.000 milliards de dollars dans le monde en 2023, selon MSCI, dont 22% de logements.En France, les investisseurs institutionnels ont délaissé le logement au fil des années depuis 1980, pour se diriger vers des marchés plus rentables : bureaux, hôtellerie ou même des placements non immobiliers, comme des actions en Bourse. Aujourd’hui, Tom Leahy rapporte que “si vous regardez où les investisseurs veulent déployer des capitaux, le résidentiel est encore très haut placé (…) en raison de tendances structurelles : pénurie de logements, croissance des loyers dans beaucoup de grandes villes européennes, urbanisation, croissance démographique”.A l’inverse le développement du télétravail a mis un coup d’arrêt au développement des bureaux et fait chuter le prix de certaines surfaces. – “Fabrique de la spéculation” -La part du résidentiel dans les investissements a beaucoup progressé au cours des dernières années dans plusieurs pays européens selon MSCI, notamment le Royaume-Uni et l’Espagne, à l’exception de l’Allemagne où une grande partie du parc locatif privé est déjà géré par des entreprises.”Les deux marchés les plus dynamiques en Europe sont le Royaume-Uni et l’Espagne car ce sont des marchés dérégulés, avec des loyers qui montent” et un retour sur investissement “au-delà de 5%”, pointe Stéphane Theuriau, président de BC Partners Real Estate, investisseur spécialisé en immobilier. Les loyers ont progressé de 9% en moyenne au Royaume-Uni en 2024 et de 11% en Espagne, ce qui a poussé le gouvernement espagnol à annoncer des mesures pour tenter de contenir la hausse des prix et relancer la construction. En France, la rentabilité n’est “pas assez attractive” pour attirer des sociétés financières dans le locatif, selon Florence Semelin, chargé du résidentiel au cabinet de conseil en immobilier JLL, principalement en raison de l’encadrement des loyers dans la plupart des zones tendues, où on manque le plus de logements.L’impact des financiers sur les locataires est en effet mitigé : les investisseurs de long terme “aident à professionnaliser le marché locatif résidentiel” car leur but est que “les gens restent le plus longtemps possible”, mais des investisseurs en recherche de profits élevés peuvent aussi “faire fortement pression sur les loyers”, relate Tom Leahy. Des associations ont justement manifesté mardi et mercredi devant le Mipim, salon que Jean-Baptiste Eyraud, porte-parole de Droit au logement, qualifie de “fabrique de la spéculation, du logement cher et de la crise du logement”. Quant à la construction de logements neufs en France, en 2023, elle était financée à 83% par les ménages et moins de 12% des investissements provenaient des entreprises, hors bailleurs sociaux. “C’est un enjeu de faire revenir les investisseurs institutionnels, mais cela ne suffira pas pour faire repartir la machine” de la construction, prévient-on à la FFB.  

US air regulator boosts Washington airport safety after crash

The US aviation regulator said Friday it has ordered stricter safety around Washington’s Ronald Reagan airport after a devastating collision between a passenger jet and a military helicopter.Helicopter traffic will be restricted around the airport, where an American Eagle airliner hit a military Black Hawk on January 29, killing 67 people.The Federal Aviation Administration also closed part of a corridor near Ronald Reagan National Airport that the military helicopter was using when it collided with the Bombardier CRJ-700 jet. Both fell into the freezing Potomac River.The route was just 23 meters (75 feet) from the corridor used by the American Eagle jet as it came into land.The National Transportation Safety Board has already warned of a risk of more collisions around the airport unless helicopter access was cut.The FAA said it was taking “a series of steps to improve safety” around Reagan airport following NTSB recommendations.These included “permanently restricting non-essential helicopter operations” around the airport and “eliminating helicopter and fixed-wing mixed traffic”, the FAA statement said.Reagan airport is in a heavily urbanized zone close to the Defense Department headquarters and the FAA said alternative routes would be found for helicopters.”If a helicopter must fly through the airspace on an urgent mission, such as lifesaving medical, priority law enforcement, or presidential transport, the FAA will keep them specific distances away from airplanes.”Two runways will be closed when helicopters on urgent missions are near the airport, the agency added.NTSB head Jennifer Homendy said this week that the distances between helicopter traffic and commercial airliners around the airport posed “an intolerable risk to aviation safety”.The investigation into the January 29 disaster is not complete but has already highlighted different versions over the altitude the military helicopter was flying at and communication difficulties between the crew and the control tower and the looming American Eagle jet.

La Bourse de Paris en hausse, portée par le plan d’investissement allemand

La Bourse de Paris a fini en nette hausse vendredi, après l’accord politique trouvé en Allemagne entre le futur chancelier conservateur Friedrich Merz et les Verts sur un plan d’investissement public de centaines de milliards d’euros pour réarmer et moderniser la première économie européenne.Le CAC 40 a pris 1,13%, à 8.028,28 points, en hausse de 90,07 points. Jeudi, il avait terminé en repli de 0,64% à 7.938,21 points.Sur une semaine, l’indice vedette est également dans le rouge, avec un recul de 1,14%.Avec l’appui des députés écologistes obtenu vendredi, le futur chancelier allemand Friedrich Merz peut désormais compter sur une majorité des deux tiers nécessaire pour faire adopter les changements constitutionnels permettant un programme de dépenses sans précédent pour réarmer et moderniser l’Allemagne.Le vote de ce plan, de plusieurs centaines de milliards d’euros, aura lieu mardi à la chambre basse des députés, le Bundestag. Dévoilé la semaine dernière, il enthousiasme les marchés qui espèrent que cela portera la croissance en Europe.Cet accord a “radicalement changé le sentiment des investisseurs”, a noté Jochen Stanzl, chez CMC Markets.”Ce programme change la donne, et pourrait apporter une dynamique de croissance qui sera positive pour tout le monde en zone euro”, a expliqué à l’AFP David Kruk, responsable du trading de La Financière de l’Échiquier.Les valeurs européennes de la défense bénéficiaient de ces perspectives, dans la mesure où les investisseurs s’attendent à ce que le plan fera la part belle à l’industrie d’armement du Vieux continent. A Paris, Thales s’est adjugé 5,57% à 250,10 euros, Airbus 4,30% à 169,20 euros et Safran 2,28%. Sur le SBF 120, Dassault a pris 5,70% à 307,80 euros.Sur le marché obligataire, les taux auxquels les États européens empruntent ont monté après la conclusion de l’accord, avant de se stabiliser en fin de journée.Le taux d’intérêt de l’obligation à dix ans français s’est établi à 3,56%, au même niveau que la veille en clôture. Son équivalent allemand référence en Europe, était à 2,87% contre 2,85% la veille.Kering déçoit et plongeLe groupe de luxe Kering a perdu 10,71% à 223,55 euros vendredi, signe que les marchés doutent de la capacité du styliste Demna Gvasalia, choisi comme nouveau directeur artistique de Gucci, à redresser la marque phare du groupe de luxe.Le créateur géorgien quitte Balenciaga, également propriété de Kering et dont il était le styliste depuis 2015, pour rejoindre la marque italienne, selon un communiqué publié jeudi soir. Agé de 43 ans, il remplace Sabato de Sarno, qui a quitté Gucci en février seulement deux ans après sa nomination, au moment où les contre-performances de Gucci plombent l’activité de sa maison mère. Ubisoft en hausseLe groupe de jeux vidéos Ubisoft a été porté vendredi (+6,80% à 13,12 euros) par des informations de Bloomberg selon lesquelles l’enteprise souhaiterait créer une nouvelle structure incluant certaines de ses propriétés intellectuelles, comme sa franchise “Assassin’s Creed”, afin de mieux les valoriser.

Trump to speak at US justice department he now dominates

US President Donald Trump is to give a speech at the Department of Justice on Friday in a show of power over the agency he accused of weaponizing the law against him under his predecessor Joe Biden.The speech on law and order by Republican Trump — the first convicted felon to sit in the White House — will be staged in the same building where officials previously  brought two criminal cases against him.Since returning to office Trump has taken a sledgehammer to the Department of Justice, breaking decades-old political norms aimed at preserving judicial independence.”All I’m going to do is set out my vision,” Trump told reporters on Thursday about the speech.White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the speech would be “focused on restoring law and order to our country.””In the last four years in the Biden administration, we unfortunately saw the Department of Justice that was weaponized against Americans for their political ideology,” she told reporters.Trump’s new Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Chief Kash Patel — both key loyalists of the 78-year-old Republican — will be there for the president’s speech.Leavitt said mothers of children killed by “illegal migrant criminals” and families affected by an epidemic of the synthetic drug fentanyl would also attend the speech.- ‘Retribution’ -Trump pledged on the campaign trail in the 2024 election to overhaul the department if he won a second term.He had it in his sights ever since Special Counsel Jack Smith charged him with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election — which he still refuses to admit he lost — and illegally taking thousands of secret documents with him on leaving the White House in 2021.But neither case came to trial and the special counsel — in line with a Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president — dropped them both after Trump won the November presidential election.Trump rocked the department on his first day back in office by pardoning more than 1,500 supporters who, in an unprecedented act of US political violence, stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to interrupt certification of Biden’s election win.He has since packed the Justice Department top ranks with loyalists and his own personal defense attorneys.These include Bondi, who defended him at his impeachment trial in his first term, and two of his lawyers in the porn star hush money trial that saw Trump convicted by a New York judge last year.Trump also exacted revenge by firing a number of high-ranking officials and demoting or reassigning others.His iron grip over the Justice Department has sparked fears that he will use it to live up to another campaign pledge — “retribution” against his political enemies.

DeepSeek dims shine of AI stars

China-based DeepSeek shook up the world of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) early this year with a low-cost but high-performance model that challenges the hegemony of OpenAI and other big-spending behemoths.Since late 2022, just a handful of AI assistants — such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, and Google’s Gemini — have reigned supreme, becoming ever more capable thanks to multi-billion-dollar investments in engineers, data centers, and high-performance AI chips.But then DeepSeek upended the sector with its R1 model, which it said cost just $6 million or so, powered by less-advanced chips.While specialists suspect DeepSeek may have cost more than its creators claim, its debut fueled talk that GenAI assistants are becoming just a regular commodity, thanks to innovation and market forces.”The first company to train models must expend lots of resources to get there,” said CFRA senior equity analyst Angelo Zino.”The second mover can get there cheaper and more quickly.”At a HumanX AI conference in Las Vegas this week, Hugging Face co-founder Thomas Wolf said it is getting less expensive to launch GenAI models — and less important which one people use.”I feel like we are moving to this multi-model world, which is a good thing,” Wolf said, pointing to the muted reception given to the most recent version of ChatGPT.- Stay flexible -At the conference, OpenAI chief product officer Kevin Weil pushed back against the notion that all models are created equal.”That’s actually not true,” Weil said.”The days of us having a 12-month lead are probably gone, but I think we have a three- to six-month lead, and that is really valuable.”Weil said OpenAI plans to fight to keep that narrowing edge over its competitors.With 400 million users, San Francisco-based OpenAI has the advantage of being able to use data from massive traffic to continually improve its models, Weil explained.”OpenAI has the Google advantage of being the thing that’s in everybody’s minds,” said Alpha Edison equity firm research director Fen Zhao.Jeff Seibert, chief of the accounting and AI start-up Digits, agreed that OpenAI will stay ahead of the pack but added that he expects the gap to eventually close.”For advanced use cases, yes, there will be a lot of advantages,” he said of OpenAI’s position.”But for a lot of stuff, it won’t matter as much.”Seibert advises entrepreneurs to design their technology to allow them to swap out GenAI models, affording them flexibility in a quickly changing industry.- Cash burn -Improved use of chips and new optimization techniques have driven down the cost of designing the large language models (LLMs) that power ChatGPT, Gemini and their rivals.An open-source approach taken by some LLMs is credited with helping accelerate innovation by making the software free for anyone to tinker with and improve.The valuation of closed-model startups such as Anthropic and OpenAI has likely peaked as their “first-mover advantage dissipates,” according to Zino.Japanese investment colossus SoftBank pumped $40 billion into OpenAI in February in a deal that valued the startup at $300 billion — almost double what it was last year.“If you’re burning a billion dollars a month, which I think OpenAI is, you have to keep raising money,” said Jai Das of venture capital firm Sapphire Ventures.”I have a hard time seeing how they get to a point where revenues are higher than the amount of cash they burn.”Anthropic raised $3.5 billion in early March, valuing the champion of responsible AI at $61.5 billion.

DeepSeek dims shine of AI stars

China-based DeepSeek shook up the world of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) early this year with a low-cost but high-performance model that challenges the hegemony of OpenAI and other big-spending behemoths.Since late 2022, just a handful of AI assistants — such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, and Google’s Gemini — have reigned supreme, becoming ever more capable thanks to multi-billion-dollar investments in engineers, data centers, and high-performance AI chips.But then DeepSeek upended the sector with its R1 model, which it said cost just $6 million or so, powered by less-advanced chips.While specialists suspect DeepSeek may have cost more than its creators claim, its debut fueled talk that GenAI assistants are becoming just a regular commodity, thanks to innovation and market forces.”The first company to train models must expend lots of resources to get there,” said CFRA senior equity analyst Angelo Zino.”The second mover can get there cheaper and more quickly.”At a HumanX AI conference in Las Vegas this week, Hugging Face co-founder Thomas Wolf said it is getting less expensive to launch GenAI models — and less important which one people use.”I feel like we are moving to this multi-model world, which is a good thing,” Wolf said, pointing to the muted reception given to the most recent version of ChatGPT.- Stay flexible -At the conference, OpenAI chief product officer Kevin Weil pushed back against the notion that all models are created equal.”That’s actually not true,” Weil said.”The days of us having a 12-month lead are probably gone, but I think we have a three- to six-month lead, and that is really valuable.”Weil said OpenAI plans to fight to keep that narrowing edge over its competitors.With 400 million users, San Francisco-based OpenAI has the advantage of being able to use data from massive traffic to continually improve its models, Weil explained.”OpenAI has the Google advantage of being the thing that’s in everybody’s minds,” said Alpha Edison equity firm research director Fen Zhao.Jeff Seibert, chief of the accounting and AI start-up Digits, agreed that OpenAI will stay ahead of the pack but added that he expects the gap to eventually close.”For advanced use cases, yes, there will be a lot of advantages,” he said of OpenAI’s position.”But for a lot of stuff, it won’t matter as much.”Seibert advises entrepreneurs to design their technology to allow them to swap out GenAI models, affording them flexibility in a quickly changing industry.- Cash burn -Improved use of chips and new optimization techniques have driven down the cost of designing the large language models (LLMs) that power ChatGPT, Gemini and their rivals.An open-source approach taken by some LLMs is credited with helping accelerate innovation by making the software free for anyone to tinker with and improve.The valuation of closed-model startups such as Anthropic and OpenAI has likely peaked as their “first-mover advantage dissipates,” according to Zino.Japanese investment colossus SoftBank pumped $40 billion into OpenAI in February in a deal that valued the startup at $300 billion — almost double what it was last year.“If you’re burning a billion dollars a month, which I think OpenAI is, you have to keep raising money,” said Jai Das of venture capital firm Sapphire Ventures.”I have a hard time seeing how they get to a point where revenues are higher than the amount of cash they burn.”Anthropic raised $3.5 billion in early March, valuing the champion of responsible AI at $61.5 billion.

Iran turns to tech to crush dissent: UN probe

Iran is increasingly using digital and surveillance technology and “state-sponsored vigilantism” to crush dissent after the “Women, Life, Freedom” protests in 2022, a UN investigation said Friday.Tehran is making “concerted state efforts to stifle dissent, perpetuating a climate of fear and systematic impunity”, the United Nations’ Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran said in a new report.These involve “the increased use of technology and surveillance, including through state-sponsored vigilantism”.Iran was rocked by demonstrations after the September 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old who had been arrested for allegedly violating the strict dress rule for women based on Islamic sharia law.Widespread anger led to weeks of taboo-breaking protests against the country’s government under supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.In November 2022, the UN Human Rights Council created a high-level investigation into the deadly crackdown.The fact-finding mission’s chair Sara Hossain told a press conference Friday that the trajectory had shifted from extreme violence during the protests’ peak to “a silencing and repression that’s ongoing”.- Criminalisation and surveillance -“For two years, Iran has refused to adequately acknowledge the demands for equality and justice that fuelled the protests in 2022,” Hossain said.”The criminalisation, surveillance and continued repression of protesters, families of victims and survivors, in particular women and girls, is deeply worrying.”Since April 2024, Iran increased the policing and criminal prosecutions of women defying the mandatory wearing of the hijab, the probe said.In its first report, the mission found that the violent crackdown on peaceful protests and discrimination against women and girls resulted in serious rights violations, many amounting to crimes against humanity.Its new report went deeper into patterns of violations and crimes, and their evolution following the protests.The investigators said that so far 10 men had been executed in the context of the protests, while at least 11 men and three women remain at risk of being executed.- Technology ‘amplifying’ control -“The state has leveraged digital tools to silence dissent, with technology amplifying and extending state control to restrict freedom of expression and association, and to control narratives,” the mission said.Hossain said Tehran had “massively engaged” in surveillance and restriction of speech in the digital realm.The Nazer app, for example, allows vetted individuals to report non-compliance in private vehicles. In September, it was updated to monitor women “in ambulances, public transport or taxis”, the report said.The confiscation of vehicles from women for alleged violations of the hijab laws also persisted, it added.Mission member Shaheen Sardar Ali highlighted the “chilling enhancing of surveillance through apps, drones and the use of facial recognition technology”, which is “very far-reaching and highly intrusive”.Hossain said that while facial recognition technology was being used worldwide, “what’s unusual and extraordinary” in Iran was its use to monitor “what a woman wears or doesn’t wear”.Furthermore, in April 2024 in Tehran and southern Iran, the state used aerial drone surveillance to monitor hijab compliance, the report said.- ‘Continuously intimidated’ -Iran’s judicial system lacks basic independence, the mission said, and victims seeking accountability are denied justice and “continuously intimidated, threatened, arrested, and subjected to criminal prosecution” along with their families.”It is therefore imperative that comprehensive accountability measures also continue to be pursued outside the country,” Sardar Ali said.The probe, which is wrapping up, has collected and preserved 38,000 evidence items and interviewed 285 victims and witnesses over two yearsIran denied the mission access to the country.Rather than seeking a prolongation of its own investigation, the mission called for a new probe into rights violations with a broader scope than just the protests and their aftermath.The report will be presented to the Human Rights Council on Tuesday.