NAI Global has opened a new office in Serbia with NAI WMG, which is led by NAI Business Director Nikola Senesi, PhD, FRICS. NAI WMG provides commercial real estate services in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Albania.

The acquisition of the second phase of Advance Tower located on the Váci road office corridor has been closed. With the current purchase, the entire office complex with a total GLA of over 20,000 sqm developed by Futureal Group has joined Erste Real Estate Fund’s portfolio. This is the first transaction in the Hungarian market which includes a WELL pre-qualified office building.

M7 Real Estate has sold three assets in Poland, on behalf of an M7 vehicle, PVBRI. Two office buildings in Poznan has been sold to local investors, while a shopping centre located in Zgorzelec has been acquired by DL Invest Group.

Ikea plans to open a new furniture store in central Vienna, next to the Westbahnhof railway station with no parking place for cars. The construction works started in January 2020 and will be finished by next year.

Alpha Bank Romania has sold a 60,000 sqm plot of land in Timișoara to German retail chain Lidl and two other investors. The Romanian bank previously planned to develop a shopping centre there, Ziarul Financiar reported.

Union Investment has agreed to acquire two planned hotel properties in Kraków and Katowice with a total of 527 rooms. The developer, vendor and future operator of the two midscale hotels, which are scheduled for completion in autumn 2021, is UBM. The purchase price of the ibis Styles-branded hotel in Kraków and Mercure-branded hotel in Katowice is approximately €86 million in total. Both leases run for 25 years.

Invesco Real Estate has sold two build-to-suit distribution centres in Poland totalling 105,000 sqm to Chinese investment company CGL Investment Holdings Corporation. The sale was made on behalf of Invesco’s strategic opportunities investment programme and the corporate transaction has set new records for the market with assets valued based on a record yield for the Polish logistics market of 4.25%. The purchase price was not disclosed.

Poland's retail market is seeing a slowdown in the pace of shopping centre construction, the growing popularity of the convenience segment and mixed-use projects, as well as further synergy of traditional shopping and technology, according to JLL’s market summary for 2019.

Cavatina Holding has signed a sale agreement for the Equal Business Park office complex in Kraków. The complex comprises four buildings offering a total of over 60,000 sqm of Class A office space. The buyer is a joint venture managed by Apollo-Rida Poland.

Savills World Research says that offices in core city markets around the world will be real estate investors’ focus in 2020, but with opportunities scarce and yields at record lows, many will be forced to look elsewhere. Alternative assets, such as student housing, multi-family, co-living and data centres, will therefore become increasingly mainstream. Globally, Savills says that securing income returns will remain the overarching theme for real estate investment in 2020.