pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank provided an investment facility of €22 million to CBRE Property Fund Central and Eastern Europe, an investment fund focusing on retail assets in Poland and Slovakia, managed by CBRE Global Investors. This is the second transaction after the refinancing of Wars Sawa Junior retail scheme one month ago. CBRE PFCEE will use the proceeds for the refinancing of the dominant Europa Shopping Center in Banská Bystrica. pbb acted as arranger and sole lender under the facility.

Prologis has begun construction of a new 23,710 square metre build-to-suit facility at Prologis Park Prague-Rudna for VAFO PRAHA, the Czech family-owned pet food producer. With construction of Building 19, the park will be fully developed and will comprise almost 250,000 square meters of distribution space.

Immofinanz has completed and opened a further shopping centre under its Vivo! retail brand in the Polish city of Krosno. Vivo! Krosno has approx. 21,000 sqm of rentable space and is fully occupied. This shopping centre expands Immofinanz‘s Vivo! portfolio to ten locations in four countries with more than 314,000 sqm of rentable space.

CTPark Bucharest West currently has 100,000 sqm of new space under construction. The company has big plans to extend the park, having recently purchased more land to allow for a total built-up of more than 700,000 sqm, potentially making CTPark Bucharest West the largest industrial park in Central Europe. The total investment for CTPark Bucharest West alone will exceed €150 million by Q1 of 2018.

Savills has extended its Central and Eastern European (CEE) network by forming an association with ESTON International, Hungary’s leading independent property advisor within the real estate industry. The announcement follows Savills opening of an office in Prague in January 2017 and the mutual co-operation agreed with Crosspoint in Romania in July 2017.

Hyatt Hotels Corporation announced plans for the Párisi Udvar Hotel in Budapest, joining Hôtel du Louvre in Paris as the second hotel in Europe for The Unbound Collection by Hyatt and third outside of the U.S. Hyatt has entered into a franchise agreement with Párizs Property Kft for the project, which will see Párisi Udvar in downtown Budapest converted into an upper-upscale 110-room hotel. The hotel will feature 18 suites, including 2 presidential suites. The Párisi Udvar Hotel is expected to open in 2018 and will be managed by Mellow Mood Hotels.

REICO, Česká spořitelna’s real estate fund manager, expanded its Polish portfolio by the acquisition of the Galeria Sloneczna shopping centre in Radom. The value of the fund’s new acquisition is approximately €164 million (CZK 4.3 billion). The seller is an American insurance group that developed the asset in a joint venture partnership with AIG/Lincoln (now White Star Real Estate).

CA Immo signed and closed a sales and purchase agreement to acquire Building B of the Warsaw Spire office complex, comprising of 21,600 sqm GLA. The transaction volume of the fully rented asset amounts to around €100 million, the annual gross rental income reaches around € 6 million. With this transaction, CA Immo fulfils one of the last strategic and budgeted targets announced for 2017.

In recent years, Poland's hotel market has shown continuous overall growth and has seen extensive investment. The number of hotels has almost doubled in the past ten years, predominantly due to Poland's opportunity to co-host the UEFA Euro 2012 with Ukraine. Between 2012 and 2016 alone, the number of hotels increased from 2,014 to 2,463, a 22% increase. Hotel property adviser Christie & Co analysed the Polish hotel market.

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