The new tenants of Swan are Cloud Business Solutions, the local representative office of a UK-based IT company and BIC Romania, the BIC personal care products vendor. Cloud rented some 400 square meters and moved in about two or three weeks ago, while BIC signed a lease for 600 square meters in February and will move there in June.
Another tenant, Dante International, the company that operates the eMag online store, decided to expand the space it rents in the complex. It will expand the space rented in Swan by about 1,000 square meters, which will take the occupancy rate of the complex to almost 45%.
How can this be considering Swan Property, the owner of the 27,000 square meter office complex, is bankrupt and insolvency specialist Casa de Insolventa Transilvania is negotiating the sale of the two office buildings comprising it?
“Asked rent dropped from EUR13/square meter per month to EUR10 and may go down even further to EUR8 depending on the name of the company, the duration of the lease and the amount of space rented,” said Carol Petrica, special administrator of the complex.
“Companies understood that the agreements signed remain valid regardless of the name of the future owner.”
While seeking tenants for Swan Office Park, the liquidator is also trying to sell it for about 42 million euros. The complex is currently generating EUR1 million in annual revenue and tenants include Mercedes Benz Romania, Flanco and Bilfinger.
“We are in the due diligence phase with several investors in view of a sale. Interest in the project is quite high. We have already received several bids,” said Andreea Anghelof, managing partner of Casa de Insolventa Transilvania.
The developer of Swan Office Park was UK’s Chayton Capital, which spent more than EUR80 million borrowed from UniCredit and Volksbank.
The reasons for the bankruptcy include the low occupancy rate and, as a result the lower than expected revenue, as well as the “unjustifiably high” spending on marketing, consultancy and management services, according to a report published in the Bulletin of Insolvency Proceedings. (EUR1= RON4.5196)
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)