Alpha Real Estate Services, the real estate unit of the Alpha Bank group, will resume work on two apartment buildings in Bucharest and complete a logistics park near the city. It bought the two projects after the companies that started them defaulted and then went bankrupt.
“These actions are in line with the Alpha Bank group’s strategy to actively manage its properties in Romania, including previous NPL (non-performing loan i.e.)/restructuring cases. They confirm the group’s commitment to Romania,” says Iulian Calin, general manager of Alpha Real Estate Services.
“We choose to invest in the projects we believe in, which we received or took over as payment for loans.”
Alpha Bank’s decision to resume work on Blue Tower in Colentina (NE Bucharest) and Green Vista in Pipera (northern Bucharest), both of them residential projects, comes after a thaw-up of the residential market last year. Investors and analysts now fear a new freeze might come because banks are beginning to raise the down payment required for mortgage loans, as the Parliament is due to resume debating the new version of the giving in payment bill.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)