28 out of the total of 80 brands that tapped the market in the Central and Eastern European region in 2018 chose the Czech Republic as their destination. As a result, the number of new brands coming to the country remained the same as in the previous year. Poland is a close second with 26 new international brands having opened their first shops there last year. The figures come from the latest comparison prepared by Cushman & Wakefield, which monitors and compares data in the real estate sector across the region. This enables the company to provide a full picture of the developments on the Central European market.

Ceetrus Romania has completed the third phase of the Coresi Business Park office project, following an investment of €14 million.

New hotels are rapidly being built across Warsaw. Twelve new hotels have been opened across the city in the last eighteen months - more than in Berlin. Warsaw is frequented by more and more visitors and it is steadily becoming one of the most important hotel markets in CEE. Does it, however, have the chance to develop as much as the hotel markets in Prague or Budapest?

Neptune, a joint venture between Neinver and Nuveen Real Estate, has acquired Silesia Outlet in Gliwice, Poland, from 6B47 Real Estate Investors for €31.5 million. The new acquisition becomes Neptune’s sixth asset in Poland and the 15th in Europe, including one project under development.

Radisson Blu announced the opening of a new Radisson Blu Hotel in Prague. The reopening of this modern hotel follows the transformation of an existing property, with major capital investment going into the project to upgrade and rebrand the former hotel.

EPP has successfully completed the purchase of four M1 shopping centres, closing tranche 2 of its multi-year M1 transaction. The JSE-listed company is already the largest owner of retail real estate in Poland by GLA and this deal with adding an additional 141,000 sqm of GLA to its portfolio. Tranche 2 consisted of M1 shopping centres in Bytom, Czestochowa, Radom and Poznan. The deal is valued at EUR 224 million.  

CTP and a consortium of three banking groups (Erste Group Bank, Société Générale and UniCredit) agreed on an underwriting package of €1.9 billion for CTP’s Czech industrial portfolio, comprising 200 buildings, covering 2.7 million sqm of premium industrial space.

Cushman & Wakefield was appointed property manager of Horizon Plaza in Warsaw. In addition, Cushman & Wakefield delivers project commercialization services for the owner of the building. The owner of Horizon Plaza is a real estate fund managed by Union Investment.

Warburg-HIH Invest Real Estate acquired a LEED Platinum certified new office building in Budapest on behalf of an open-ended special AIF of an institutional investor. The White House, developed by GTC Group, was completed in summer of 2018 and has a gross lettable area of 22,300 square metres. The property is fully occupied, the main tenants being investment fund manager BlackRock, Jaguar Land Rover and the Dutch co-working provider Spaces. The average lease term is 8.2 years. It was agreed not to disclose the purchase price.

Henderson Park, a pan-European private equity real estate platform, has completed the acquisition of a 70% interest in a portfolio of 11 newly built office buildings located in tier one cities in Poland from EPP.  EPP will retain a 30% stake in the portfolio and continue to manage the assets, in partnership with Henderson Park’s experienced asset management team.