Skanska’s usual business model is to develop projects and sell them right after completion and the company is testing this strategy on the Romanian market, as well, where it is working on its first project.
However, Romania does not have too many active investors that could afford to pay about EUR50 million to EUR60 million for Skanska’s project, so one of the groups it started talks with exploring the possibility to sell is Globalworth real estate fund of businessman Ioannis Papalekas, ZF has found from real estate market sources.
Skanska officials did not comment on the information by press time.
It bought 15,000 square meters of land from businessman Gabriel Popoviciu in late 2012 in order to develop a three office building complex with a lettable area of about 52,000 square meters. Work on the first building with a lettable area of 19,500 square meters started at the beginning of 2013 and then Orange and Schneider Electric rented 90% of it, with completion expected for this fall.
Second building is well under way and will be delivered next year. It has already found its first tenant, pharmaceutical group Sanofi. The investment in the two buildings stands at about EUR80 million and the Swedish company self-funded the construction, so a potential buyer would have to get a significant bank loan or have tens of millions of euros available to buy.
Green Court is located in the hottest office building area of Bucharest, at the intersection of the Barbu Vacarescu, Calea Floreasca and Pipera Overpass, where real estate investors have built or are about build about one billion euros’ worth of projects around the Promenada mall.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)