"In Romania, 2025 started strongly for the retail segment, where a single investor from the UK, M Core, bought a shopping center, Suceava Shopping City, and a portfolio of seven retail parks with a cumulative value of 105 million euro, representing a share of 68% of the total. Romanian investors maintained their third place in terms of share, also recorded last year. Last year, properties with a cumulative value of 151.2 million euros were purchased with Romanian capital, which means a share of 21%", says Nicolae Ciobanu, Managing Partner - Head of Advisory at Fortim Trusted Advisors, a member an alliance of the BNP Paribas Real Estate.
Lebanon ranks second in terms of transactions in Q1 2025, with a 34.3% share. A company from Lebanon acquired an 8,400-square-meter office building in Bucharest's Victoria Center for approximately 30 million euros. The office building has a high occupancy rate.
Another commercial property in Bucharest has caught the attention of a foreign investor from Cyprus. The historical villa Maria Lahovari, where Martha Bibescu lived, located in the Dorobanti district of Bucharest, was bought by a family of businessmen for 6.35 million euro, with the aim of transforming it into a private school.
In addition to these commercial assets, a Chinese investor bought a furniture company, including production halls, in Timiș County for more than 10 million euro.
Balance sheet 2024: investments in industrial parks put Belgians and Czechs in the first two places, followed by Romanians
Last year, Belgian investors were in the first place, Czech investors in the second and Romanian investors in the third place among the investors who bought Romanian commercial assets by nationality.
Belgium was represented by the WDP group, which acquired industrial and commercial areas in three consecutive transactions, with a total value of 207 million euros.
In second place in terms of nationality and total value was the Czech investor CTP, which bought a portfolio of industrial parks worth 168 million euro. Romanian investors purchased various commercial assets with a cumulative value of 151.2 million euro, ranging from retail parks, commercial spaces on the ground floor of apartment blocks, office buildings and even hotels, located by the sea, in the mountains or in tourist towns.
"In 2025, investor interest in retail parks remains high and the hotel sector is showing promising development. In addition, a major transaction involving a portfolio of industrial parks is nearing completion and has the potential to significantly increase the total investment volume this year. In the office segment, although the time to complete transactions has been extended, the current context is creating opportunities for premium assets, well positioned and with high occupancy rates, which continue to attract investors' attention. These properties remain reference points in a dynamic and constantly adapting market", says Nicolae Ciobanu, Managing Partner - Head of Advisory at Fortim Trusted Advisors, a member an alliance of the BNP Paribas Real Estate.
The highest volume of Romanian capital was recorded in 2022, when Pavăl Holding bought offices with a total value of 467 million euro, with the Romanian capital then accounting for 49% of the total, in a year of record transactions. However, in the following years, 2023 and 2024, Pavăl Holding diversified the countries in which it invested in real estate, like Switzerland and Italy.
FORTIM Trusted Advisors, member an alliance of the BNP Paribas Real Estatein Romania, is a real estate consulting company founded in 2002, managed by Costin Nistor, Bogdan Cange and Nicolae Ciobanu since December 2020. The company offers real estate consulting services in the office segment, retail, industrial & logistics, valuations, capital markets, research, but also Property Management and Project Management services. In the area of Property Management, the company manages over 100,000 square meters of office, retail, and industrial space. Among the most important recurring clients of FORTIM Trusted Advisors are Morgan Stanley, Add Value Management, Indotek, Kesz and First Property Asset Management. Also, in the office segment, the company handled the trading of spaces for Reckit Benkiser, Renault, Fortech, Grohe, Credius, OLX Group, Multinode Network, AHI Carrier, AVL, UMT Software, Future Electronics, The Home or Bioderma.
