Real estate investors tend to keep doing things in exactly the way as they did in the year before. For a long time this worked out well, but to stay in the race, one must make use of the data available. Bouke-Pieter van Dijk, Director of Retail Atlas Schweiz and one of the speakers of the upcoming RICS European Retail Conference talked to Property Forum about his company.

AEW’s Europe City Retail Fund has acquired a 3,000 sqm mixed-use building in the centre of Budapest for around €18 million. The sellers of the high street building were the Pallas Athéné Foundations, created by the Central Bank of Hungary.

Conseq Group’s Conseq Realitní investment fund has bought the A7 Office Center in Prague from Revetas. The purchase price has not been disclosed. The 16,000 sqm building is located in the Czech capital’s Holešovice district. The list of tenants includes Czech News Center, Ahold Czech Republic, DM Drugerie and Megapixel.

Mitiska REIM, a specialist investor in European retail parks, announced a major new strategic partnership with Karuzela Holding. Under the terms of the agreement, Mitiska REIM and Karuzela will form a joint venture in Poland, and Mitiska REIM’s FRI 2 fund will acquire a 50% holding in 2 retail parks and 2 gallerias owned by Karuzela, with a total gross leasable area (GLA) of 35,600 sqm, and both parties will co-develop 4 additional projects with a total GLA of approximately 60,000 sqm.

Hines and Zeus Capital Management announced the completion of the sale and purchase of the Graffit building in Warsaw. The property owned by Hines Russia & Poland Fund (HRPF) was sold to TAN Poland Sp. z o.o., a company managed by Zeus Capital Management. This is Zeus’ first investment in Poland and it is part of its commercial real estate platform dedicated to Central and South East Europe.

New retail supply amounted to approximately 420,000 sqm in 2018, pushing Poland’s total retail stock up by 3% to 14.7 million sqm. Nearly 30% of the new supply was completed in small-scale shopping centres and retail parks (sized below 20,000 sqm). Extensions of existing shopping centres and retail parks delivered approximately 60,000 sqm of new retail space. Cushman & Wakefield presented a summary of the Polish retail market in 2018.

AFI Europe announced that it would start building a retail park in Arad by the end of this year. The developer will invest €40 million in the project located on an 80,000 sqm land plot, zf.ro reports.

Oasis Retail Development & Consulting has entered into a partnership with Austrian-based group Supernova for the development of Prima Shopping Center Sibiu. The 40,000 sqm retail park is located north of the city centre.

Bucharest’s central business district developed around Victoriei Square is registering an upward evolution in office activity, with a historic record-high volume in take-up and positive growth in pipeline stock, as showed by the latest office analysis conducted by Activ Property Services.

Colliers International sees the most important macro indicator for CEE in 2019, Eurozone interest rates, flat-lining at zero. This should stem some of the potential angst over tightening credit conditions, keep liquidity high, buyers interested and help pricing to plateau. Colliers International foresees selective compression in capital city prime office yields and still like the logistics sector. Absent a Eurozone financial crisis, funding from lenders should remain a support. Colliers International published its latest CEE report.