Austrian privately held development company Karimpol Group officially launched the construction of the Squarebizz project in Bratislava. The first phase consists of 15,000 sqm of retail, storage, service and showroom facilities accompanied by up to 2,000 sqm of offices in three separate buildings. A second construction phase will extend the Squarebizz Bory by another 15,000 sqm of modern flexible space plus offices.

CPI Property Group and Aroundtown notified Globalworth of a series of transactions in respect of their existing holdings which have resulted in Zakiono, an entity indirectly owned by the consortium holding a total of 51.50% of the shares in the company. Zakiono now itself holds sufficient voting rights to exert statutory control over the company, including in due course the ability to appoint and remove directors from the board.

Companies from the BPO sector may be reducing their offices in North America or Western Europe, but they are taking up more space in CEE at the same time. Yovav Carmi, CEO of GTC talked to Property Forum about issuing green bonds, ESG strategies and the BPO industry.

Ghelamco has just announced that the general contractor of the KREO office building in Kraków will be Mota-Engil Central Europe. KREO is the third office development project, after Craft in Katowice and The Bridge in Warsaw, announced by Ghelamco between 2020 and 2021.

Cushman & Wakefield has analysed the findings of a survey carried out by SW Research on a representative sample of the inhabitants of the largest Polish cities. Polish people are increasingly choosing to rent as home prices have reached sky-high levels; additionally, they favour renting for its flexibility and convenience.

The list of industrial and logistics developers active in the booming Polish market has now been joined by LCube, headed by Adrian Biesaga and Michał Stachura. The leasing team will be led by Aleksandra Kołbon. LCube's first project will be implemented in Jasionka near Rzeszów.

A&D Pharma, a subsidiary of Dr.Max Group, has leased a warehouse of 9,000 sqm in CTPark Sibiu, in a bid to streamline its distribution supply chain for pharmacies located in the central and western Romania as well as for online orders. 

“An Investment in commercial property is attractive to investors who want to invest their money and generate higher yields. Commercial real estate investments are also becoming more popular with private investors to complement the portfolio”, explains Markus Arnold, CEO of Arnold Investments. This trend led to a strong half-year performance in the commercial sector for the investment brokers. With a transaction volume of about €100 million and 90,000 sqm of space brokered, the company declared a healthy six-month balance. “Two thirds of the transactions were concluded in Austria and one third in our other European branches where further deals are imminent. In most of the deals both buyers and sellers are advised by Arnold Investments”, reports Markus Arnold in greater detail.

Real estate market players in Romania could face new challenges if the current inflation pressures spill into the next years, said executives during an expert panel discussion that marked the launch of Property Forum’s first annual “The 50 Most Influential People on Romania’s Real Estate Market” publication.

Romanian real estate developer One United Properties has raised €52.8 million from its Initial Public Offering (IPO) on the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) and reached a capitalization of €580 million.