In 2019, the Polish warehouse and industrial market witnessed a record supply amid an unwavering occupier demand despite the earlier fears of an economic slowdown, says real estate advisory firm Savills. Demand continues to be driven, among other factors, by e-commerce.

Local investors continue to dominate the Czech property market as new family offices, private wealth and retail funds continue to establish and expand. Colliers International published its Q4 2019 investment, industrial and office market overview of the Czech Republic.

In 2019 the volume of property investment transactions on the Hungarian market decreased slightly in comparison with the previous year (€1.75 billion), however, the total value of transactions has been higher than €1.5 billion every year since 2016. There was a strong and stable demand for office and retail properties, with the volume of hotel sales also increasing significantly, according to Eston International’s H2 2019 investment market report.

Romanian developer Urbano Parks is investing €14 million in a logistics park located in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

CPI Property Group published its unaudited profit and credit estimates for the financial year ended 31 December 2019.

Globalworth signed a lease with DS Smith for its second logistics park in Timisoara, a project belonging to Globalworth Industrial, its industrial and logistics sub-brand. DS Smith decided to relocate its Service Center operations from Timisoara, renting more than 6,000 sqm at the park. Following this new collaboration, the occupancy rate in all completed industrial projects under the Globalworth umbrella reached 100%.  

Cordia International announced a public tender offer on 14 February 2020 to buy the remaining approximately 34.34% of the shares in Polnord S.A., which is not owned by Cordia International currently.

Kraków has nearly doubled its office stock over the last four years, becoming the largest and fastest-growing regional city office market in Poland, according to a new report by Savills.

Erste Group Bank AG has appointed Patrick Zehetmayr to head the banking group’s commercial real estate business, which encompasses non-residential activities at both the stock-listed company’s holding level and at Erste Bank Oesterreich, the group’s Austrian subsidiary. In his new role, Zehetmayr is responsible for the group’s commercial real estate coverage and financing activities, as well as for the real estate leasing business of Erste Group Immorent (EGI), whose supervisory board he chairs.

The industrial property market in the western and north-western areas of Romania is growing rapidly, after the stock has doubled in just four years, becoming the second-largest market after Bucharest. Stock is expected to exceed 700,000 sqm this year, according to CBRE data. The company recently advised the lease of a total area of about 18,000 sqm of industrial space within the Timisoara Industrial Park II project, which thus became fully occupied.