VB.NET: Instantiate a nested property by reflection

I want to set the values of the properties via reflection. In this thread they propose a solution. But the problem with the solution is that it is not instantiating the properties. But I want to check and instantiate the properties if necessary. My DTO is:

Public Class root
    Public Property Printing() As rootPrinting
End Class

Public Class rootPrinting
    Public Property Printer() As String
    Public Property PrinterBatch() As String
End Class

Now for setting the properties I have defined the following function:

Public Sub SetProperty(ByVal target As Object, ByVal compoundProperty As String, ByVal value As Object)
    Dim properties As String() = compoundProperty.Split("."c)
    For i As Integer = 0 To properties.Length - 1 - 1
        Dim propertyToGet As PropertyInfo = target.[GetType]().GetProperty(properties(i))
        target = propertyToGet.GetValue(target, Nothing)
        if IsNothing(target) then
            if propertyToGet.PropertyType.IsClass then
                target = Activator.CreateInstance(propertyToGet.PropertyType)
            End If
        End If
    Next

    Dim propertyToSet As PropertyInfo = target.[GetType]().GetProperty(properties.Last())
    propertyToSet.SetValue(target, value, Nothing)
End Sub

Then I call it like this:

Dim configObject as New root
SetProperty(configObject , "Printing.Printer","skjfkd")

If before calling SetProperty(configObject,...) I instantiate configObject.Printing then it will work fine:

Dim configObject as New root
configObject.Printing = new rootPrinting()
SetProperty(configObject , "Printing.Printer","skjfkd") 

Otherwise after calling SetProperty(...), configObject.Printing will be Nothing.
It seems that when calling Activator.CreateInstance(propertyToGet.PropertyType) the reference to the original object is lost. While the object in the function is really initialized, the main object remains Nothing. How can I instantiate the class property correctly?