“The intent is to keep growing and the focus remains on retail acquisitions in Central and Eastern Europe, with Romania as our base,” says Morar, 31.
About of 80% of the properties held by NEPI are in Romania and Morar says the company only has a few targets left for acquisition in this country, which means the share of Romanian assets in the total portfolio might go down.
“After Poland, still a very ‘hot’ country in terms of real estate industry, the most interesting market in the region was Romania, which has become rather crowded lately. We are carefully looking at properties in Slovakia, Czech Republic and Hungary and will go where the opportunities arise.”
He took over as NEPI CEO two weeks ago, following the departure of Martin Slabbert, the founder of the company, who decided to pursue another business.
“We believe retail is more profitable than the office space, especially for us as a long-term investor,” Morar says.
Retail assets make up 80% of NEPI’s portfolio, followed by office buildings, 18% and industrial space, 2%, according to its first half report.
Most of the over EUR210 million developments NEPI is working on at the moment are retail projects. NEPI is building a mall in Timisoara, and expanding the shopping centers it has in Constanta, Deva and Drobeta Turnu Severin.
NEPI also has two office space projects under development, Victoriei Office, near the Romanian government building in Bucharest and the second phase of The Office in Cluj, which NEPI owns together with businessman Ovidiu Sandor.
“We haven’t made any major acquisition this year, only development. We may make new acquisitions by yearend, though.”
He says NEPI is not planning to sell its major properties for the time being, only the smaller non-core business ones, whose yield does not justify the efforts. One such piece of property is an office building in Zalau, Salaj County. NEPI also plans to buy some plots of land, especially in other parts of the country than Bucharest. The company is in talks for a plot of land in Satu Mare where it wants to build Shopping City Satu Mare.
NEPI posted almost EUR47 million in net rental and related income in the first half, an increase of about 65% on the year-ago period, according to its first half report.
Property portfolio includes Mega Mall, Promenada Mall, Vulcan Value Center, City Park Constanta, Ploiesti Shopping City, Braila Mall, Galati Shoppping City, as well as office buildings Floreasca Business Park, The LakeView in Bucharest, City Business Centre in Timisoara and The Office in Cluj.
Alex Morar has a dual degree in finance and information systems from Stern School of Business, New York University and has been working for NEPI since its establishment in 2007.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)