Last year, the real estate consultants from JLL registered a total volume of transactions in Romania (including retail, office and industrial) of EUR 900 million.
Francisc Peli, managing partner of PeliFilip, law firm involved in the largest real estate transaction registered last year, the takeover of the retail park Sibiu Shopping City by NEPI, for EUR 100 million, says that some of the real estate assets to be sold in this period belongs to investment funds which are closing their activity, as they matured and they have to return money to their investors.
One of the real estate investments funds to exit Romania is PBW II, launched by AEW Europe in 2006, exit to be made through the sale of Promenada mall in Tîrgu Mureş and of the office building America House in Central Business District of Bucharest.
The company could get from the sale of the two assets more than EUR 170 million, according to calculations. The investor has paid EUR 210 million ten years ago.
Despite a seeming liquidity growth, the Romanian real estate market is still spinning around the same investors, as Peli says, the perception change about Romania is very slow.
„Many of them have burned in 2007-2008 in Romania, as they didn’t get to close a cycle in order to obtain revenues, so they prefer the familiar markets. Those having to choose between Romania nad Poland, they continue to invest in Poland“, Francisc Peli explains.
The noticed behaviour is confirmed by the results from 2016, when in Central and Eastern Europe was registered the highest transactions level since 2007, EUR 15.81 billion, according to JLL data. Poland and the Czech Republic continued to be effervescent markets, totalling 65 pct. of the volume transacted in the region. Romania and Slovakia were placed on the last place, with 7 pct. share.
Though they declared they had not the intention of exiting the Romanian market, the Greeks of Global Finance sold last year some properties, such as the Automatica plot, a transaction of EUR 25 million and they consider the sale of some of the assets, in certain market conditions. The most important asset they own is the office park in Pipera-Tunari, Global City Business Park, but the company has declared to Capital magazine that it was not for sale for the moment.
„We are not exiting Romania. We are analyzing different opportunities to continue our activity in the market, both on development and on investments and consultancy. We might sell some of the assets we own, as part of the general strategy, if the market conditions are good in the future“, says Ivana Bozjak, Partner, Head of Real Estate within Global Finance.
One of the largest office transactions expected this year is the sale of the office complex AFI Park, developed in Bucharest by AFI Europe. The complex includes five office buildings erected around AFI Palace Cotroceni mall. The transaction value could reach more than EUR 150 million and the interested buyers include the owners of Dedeman and investment fund Globalworth.
Another office complex on sale on the Bucharest market is Hermes Business Campus, which includes three building developed by Atenor Group near Pipera metro station. (source: capital.ro)
