After office space or shopping centers were the object of the most important deals in Romania in the past few years, in 2015 it was industrial and logistics properties’ turn to take the center stage. Moreover, a number of foreign companies like Czech Republic’s P3 and Netherlands’ CTP, have entered Romania lately, proving it is becoming increasingly attractive for investments.
“Investor interest in Romania is because of the favorable economic prospects and the increase in competition and prices for prime products in Poland and Czech Republic,” says Andrei Vacaru, capital markets consultant & head of research with JLL Romania, which brokered several real estate deals this year.
“Clearly there is more money for Romania partly because of the improvement in lending conditions for real estate market.”
This year’s biggest deal, the acquisition of the Europolis logistics park by P3 from Austria’s CA Immo, stood at about EUR120 million. Even though announced last year, the deal was closed at the beginning of 2015 and was one of the first signs of a resurgence of investors’ appetite for industrial property.
Another major investor on this particular market is CTP, which bought three logistics parks in Romania this year, Mercury Logistics Park, Deva Logistics Park and Cefin Logistics Park, for a total of EUR30 million, as ZF has found.
“The industrial and logistics segment is this year’s star in terms of traded volume. Whereas NEPI remains the most active investor on the retail segment, on the office space segment we have Globalworth and on the industrial and logistics segment CTP,” says Mihaela Galatanu, head of research with real estate consultant DTZ Echinox.
The retail market generated the second largest transaction by value in the first nine months, the acquisition by NEPI of Iris Titan center for EUR96 million. Iris Titan’s anchor is an Auchan hypermarket with more than EUR100 million sales a year, according to ZF data.
Another important deal was the repurchase by CA Immo of the minority stakes the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development had in a number of Eastern European properties, including Europe House and River Place in Bucharest.
The total volume of real estate transactions amounted to some EUR600 million in the first nine months and could amount to EUR800 million by yearend, JLL’s Andrei Vacaru says.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)