The drop in footfall numbers in the majority of shopping centres combined with a drop in turnover, as well as ongoing talks between tenants and shopping centre owners have caused a slowdown or even temporary suspension of development plans of some retail chains, especially those in the fashion sector. JLL summarised conditions on Poland's retail market at the end of H1 2020.

Globalworth published a trading update summarising the key highlights of its operating performance during the first six months of the year, including some further updates as to the impact of the pandemic crisis on its operations.

The Romanian unit of German automotive parts supplier Continental has completed a €27 million investment in the expansion of its office building in Iași.

Law firm Kinstellar has successfully represented OTP Bank and its Bulgarian subsidiary, DSK Bank, in negotiating a €25 million loan for the construction and operation of Balkan Business Center, a major office complex in Sofia.

Romanian real estate developer One United Properties is selling part of its One Cotroceni Park urban regeneration project, currently under development in Bucharest, for €25 million. The amount raised is to be invested in the further development of the project, profit.ro reports.

Panattoni has completed the construction of a forklift assembly plant for KION Group, one of the largest providers of intralogistics solutions and warehouse technologies worldwide comprising brands like Linde, STILL and Dematic. The facility, offering more than 44,000 sqm in Kołbaskowo near Szczecin, has been delivered in compliance with the most stringent environmental protection guidelines.

According to Savills, commercial property investment activity hit €2.92 billion across Poland in H1 2020, up by almost 5% on the same period in 2019. Despite COVID-19 challenges, it was the second-best result in the first half of a year on record. Savills anticipates that the pandemic’s impact will be noticeable in H2 2020, but the investment volume is unlikely to fall by more than 20% compared to last year’s all-time high.

Colliers International represented the Deichmann Group in the renegotiation of a lease agreement for 13,000 sqm of modern warehouse space in Prologis Park Wrocław III and in expanding by an additional 7,000 sqm. 

Total demand on the Budapest industrial market amounted to 202,610 sqm in Q2 2020, which is two times higher than the figure registered in the same period last year and 17% higher than the 4-year average Q2 volume. The Budapest Research Forum published its quarterly industrial market analysis

The first half of 2020 saw a record high investment activity with €3.5 billion of investment transactions closed on the Polish market. Although this was a 30% higher result compared to the corresponding period of last year, achieving a full-year result similar to the record-breaking €7.8 billion volume of 2019 may be difficult, according to Avison Young.