2016 was a record-breaking year for the Polish investment market and had the best investment performance since the financial crisis in 2009. With over €4.5 billion transacted in 2016, Poland remains the stand out performer across the CEE region, CBRE reports in its latest in research. 

pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank has provided a long term acquisition facility, in a total amount of €108 million, to a company managed by CBRE Global Investors on behalf of a German separate account. The transaction closed in January 2017. pbb acted as arranger and sole lender under the facility. 

Accor, the majority shareholder of Orbis, exercised its buy-out option right over the Sofitel Budapest Chain Bridge hotel, located in Budapest, with a buy-out date of 31 May 2017. The value of the transaction has been estimated at €44 million.

An industrial area, located in Prague – Horní Počernice has been sold by Carrier to a private investor. The property has a total area of 12,621 sqm. It consists of an administrative building, two warehouses and plots for parking and material manipulation. It features 4,822 sqm of covered premises and offers possible future development.

The Romanian retail market continued to expand in 2016 with total stock reaching 1.22 million sqm in Bucharest and 2.3 million sqm in regional cities. For 2017 no major retail project is scheduled for completion in the capital, while 130,000 sqm are expected to be delivered in regional cities. DTZ Echinox Romania published its retail reports for 2016.

Poland’s total retail stock stood at nearly 14 million sqm at year-end 2016. Shopping centres continue to dominate the market, accounting for 73% of the country’s stock, followed by retail warehouses (18%), retail parks (8%) and outlet centres (1%). Last year’s new supply totalled 460,600 sqm, of which more than three-fourths were delivered across shopping centres. Twenty two new retail schemes were opened in 2016: 15 shopping centres, the largest being Posnania in Poznań (99,000 sqm) and Galeria Metropolia in Gdańsk (34,000 sqm), two retail parks and five standalone retail warehouses. Extensions and redevelopments of 13 existing schemes provided 74,000 sqm of leasable space, making up 16% of the total annual supply. Cushman & Wakefield presented its latest report on Poland’s retail market.

Total commercial real estate investment across CEE (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia) reached €4.4bn in Q4 2016, a 27% increase on Q4 2015. This took full year volumes for 2016 to just over €11bn, an 11% increase on 2015 (€9.9bn), bucking the wider trend across Europe and on the continent where volumes shrank year-on-year. Cushman & Wakefield Czech Republic predicts a further growth of the region. 

ČS Real Estate fund, the largest and oldest Czech open-ended property fund, managed by REICO, has acquired the Park One office building in Bratislava for €35.6 million from private investment firm Falcon II Fund. 

Martin Hudak has been promoted to the position of Head of Industrial Agency at Cushman & Wakefield in Slovakia.

Belgian developer Atenor announced the sale of building A of the Váci Greens office complex in Budapest to a group of private Hungarian investors. This building is the first of the three buildings built by Atenor on the Váci Corridor.