Ioannis Papalekas said he would own a portfolio of EUR 1 billion in Romania by the end of the year and had in plan for the next two years investments of another billion Euros.
The focus of his future investments will be on logistics, being targeted Timisoara, Cluj and Constanta, with a total of approx. 300 million Euros for this segment. "We will build a lot on logistics in Timisoara. We start now 150,000 sq. m. Moreover, we will develop offices in downtown in Timisoara. We will start with a first phase of 20,000 sq. m, and overall the office project in Timisoara could reach 60,000 sq. m", says Papalekas.
The retail sector is not attractive as investment for Papalekas, as in his opinion, there are too many malls in large cities in Romania. The residential sector however is becoming attractive, the next year Ioannis Papalekas planning to develop a residential project in Calea Floreasca area, on the plot of the former Automatica factory. This will be a middle upper project, including residential towers.
The office market in Bucharest is still attractive for the real estate investor, which has currently ongoing the construction of Bucharest One and Gara Herastrau, also starting the works for the business campus in Pipera area, for which he has already selected the constructor. However, Ioannis Papalekas estimates that problems on the Bucharest office market could reappear in the next 2-3 years, in the conditions that there are more and more developments and the request is not keeping up with the new deliveries dynamics.
How much will last the auspicious period for acquisitions in Romania?
"IT depends. The period will be very short if the large investors such as AXA or Blackstone are coming back quickly on the Romanian market and longer if they are late. I estimate that starting next year we will see again such players on the market, because it makes sense", says Ioannis Papalekas, mentioning that this coming back is related to the context that the yields are dropping in Western Europe.
He also added that there is still time for acquisitions, and Globalworth has such plans, being in negotiations for assets which could lead to transactions of EUR 500 million in 2015, but he says that probably not all of them will be completed in the end.
Globalworth is one of the most important developers and investors in the real estate, with 53 corporate employees and approx. 200 on property management. The company owns in Romania a series of real estate projects, mainly on the office segment in Bucharest. In the end of last year, Ioannis Papalekas owned through the company Globalworth a real estate portfolio of EUR 600 million, excluding the buildings Unicredit, Nusco Tower and Green Court. (source: wall-street.ro)
