In the decade since Lend Lease, followed shortly by Westfield, arrived in the UK, the Australian approach to mall development and operation has transformed our industry, with innovative design and new operational standards. So it'll be interesting to see what Stockland, with its focus on mixed-use, brings to the party.

Multiplex's corporate woes owe nothing to its UK shopping centre activities and more to the poisoned chalice that was Wembley Stadium. But it looks as though another international investor could pick up its assets. The Australian press has been running rumours that a Canadian investor is Multiplex's mystery suitor.

Stockland's decision to enter the UK market also underlines just how international the real estate industry has become, and the retail sector is no exception. Jones Lang LaSalle calculates that in 2006 a total of E26bn or £17bn of investment transactions were recorded in Continental European retail real estate, up by 77 per cent on 2005 and more than three times higher than in 2004.

And it's cross-border investment that is driving this surge in activity. Overall, Europeans remain the largest investor group in their own market, but the USA and Australia were also significant investors. Over E800m was invested from the UAE, a large proportion coming from St Martins Property Corporation, which spent over E600m in Turkey and made a further acquisition in Poland.

Investors from the UK have been the biggest spenders across the Channel in 2006. Some 22 per cent of the total capital came from the UK, mostly from private property companies which purchased shopping centres and solus retail warehouse units in Germany, Finland and Sweden.

Capital & Regional - manager of the Mall and the Junction funds - has been growing a new German business, and Resolution Property claimed the prize for the biggest retail warehousing deal in Continental Europe with the E220m acquisition of the Barakaldo Retail Park near Bilbao, Spain.

But nobody is more international in their outlook than the Dutch investors. The biggest retail property investor in 2006 was ING Real Estate Investment Management, accounting for 6 per cent of total volume and 9 per cent of total shopping centre volume in 2006. Shopping centres in southern Europe were a particular focus for ING last year, and Will Rowson, head of European acquisitions at ING REIM, expects more of the same in 2007: "We see the market in 2007 remaining just as competitive as it has been for the past 12 months," he says. "Having a team of good local people on the ground across Europe is critical to securing product ahead of the market."

And according to Jeremy Eddy, director in European retail capital markets at JLL, investors are widening their horizons to new markets. "The last 12 months have witnessed no slowdown in the unrelenting demand for retail real estate across Europe, particularly in the core markets of Germany, Spain, Poland and Italy," he says. "Investor interest is moving further east and we have seen the first major transactions taking place in Turkey, Russia, Ukraine, Croatia and now Romania and Bulgaria.

Eddy believes the main drivers of this geographical diversification by investors are yield margins and asset management opportunities, and he expects more of the same in 2007. So all in all, it looks as though shopping centre investors could be clocking up plenty of air miles this year.

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