A CZK 4 billion (€162 million) real estate deal is set to take place in the Czech Republic in 2024, which will undoubtedly be one of the biggest in the next year. Development group Portin is set to sell a set of around ten retail parks whose main tenants include Billa, Penny Market, DM Drogerie and Datart, writes online daily e15.cz.
The Portin development group wants to raise money for further investments by selling the package. "The sale exclusively includes new projects that we are currently completing or will complete in the next year. These are parks in various locations in the Czech Republic. In some cases, these are larger-scale projects with a leasable area of between five and nineteen thousand square metres," the company's managing director, Jindřich Kukačka, told e15.
The package of commercial properties to be sold includes retail parks in Prague's Lipenice, Úvaly near Prague, Lišov near České Budějovice or in Miroslav na Moravě. There will probably also be parks that we are currently completing in Plzeň and Dolní Břežany in the Central Bohemian Region," Kukačka specifies. According to him, Portin is counting on both the option of selling the real estate complex to one strong investor and its possible division into several smaller packages for more interested parties. It will depend on the interest of the buyers. "Overall, we expect the deal to be worth between four and 4.5 billion crowns (€182.5 million)," Portin's chief executive said.
The package offered by Portin, includes Billa, Penny Market, DM Drogerie or Datart as tenants. "These are also euro rents with well-secured indexation," says Kukačka, another reason why Portin is building the attractiveness of the package. Another is the fact that all the parks were built after the COVID-19 pandemic, so they complied with the stricter rules introduced then. The Portin name only appeared on the commercial real estate market two years ago. However, the company is backed by well-known entrepreneurs Jindřich Kukačka and Jiří Kadlec. Together, they own KPD Group and Exafin, long-established development groups that also build residential projects. Under the Portin brand, the businessmen covered their joint development activities, which mainly concern retail parks.
In the past, Kukačka and Kadlec have sold parks worth billions of crowns. "We do not let foreign capital into our company. We want to be a healthy company and not have liabilities that could influence our decision-making. We are keeping some of the parks in our portfolio, but we must sell some of them so that we can continue to invest," Kukačka explains, adding that Portin wants to build 48 more retail parks in various locations in the Czech Republic by 2026. It will complete six to seven of them this year alone, and around 13 next year.
Retail parks also have the advantage of faster construction and often a faster permitting process. "There is a huge difference in how people perceive it. When you're building an apartment building, you're often met with resistance from people, which makes everything significantly longer. But in the case of a retail park, you're often bringing something to the site that people want. The town hall has several requirements in this case as well, but the key is that they are interested in the development," Kukačka points out. Retail parks for Portin are built by Welkin, a construction company that is also part of Kukačka and Kadlec's holding.
