At the level of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), the local market attracted about 10% of the total investment volume of 4.1 billion euros recorded in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. The first place was occupied by the Czech Republic (1.9 billion euros, with a share of 45%), which surpassed Poland, the country where an investment volume of about 1.3 billion euros (31%) was registered. Romania placed third, over Hungary (7%), Slovakia (5%) and Bulgaria (2%).
At the local level, the most active sector was the office segment, with a share of 53% of the total volume, followed by the retail (28%), while the sector of industrial and logistics spaces had a share of 18% of the total. From the point of view of the geographical distribution, Bucharest attracted 40% of the total real estate investments in Romania, being followed by Cluj-Napoca, with 32%, the rest of the transactions being recorded in several cities.
Tim Wilkinson, Partner, Capital Markets, Cushman & Wakefield Echinox: “Regarding the activity in the first half of the year, we consider that an important factor that negatively influenced the investment volume was the banks' reluctance to finance such acquisitions due to the uncertainties caused by fiscal measures announced by the government at the end of last year. Subsequently, the Government re-analyzed and revised the measures, so that the impact on the banking system was much lower than initially estimated, which unlocked the corporate segment lending and will allow accelerating transactions in the second part of the year. Thus, we anticipate that the investment volume this year will substantially exceed the level of 1 billion euros”.
The largest transaction in terms of value was concluded by Dedeman, who acquired the office project The Office in Cluj-Napoca, with a rentable area of 63,000 square meters for 130 million euros, from NEPI Rockcastle and Mulberry Development. This transaction marks a consolidation of Dedeman's portfolio, which is becoming an increasingly important player in the local office space market. By acquiring The Bridge project, Dedeman had also made the largest transaction on the local market in 2018.
Another important transaction was the acquisition of Oregon Park C in the Floreasca-Barbu Vacarescu area, the last building of the Oregon Park project, which was sold by the Portland Trust to Lion's Head Investments for an estimated 60 million euros.
Regarding the industrial segment, the most relevant transaction was the acquisition of the A1 Logistic Park project at km 13 of the A1 motorway by CTP for approximately 40 million euros. (source: agendaconstructiilor.ro)
