NEPI Rockcastle announced that it will open Shopping City Satu Mare, its 18th shopping centre in Romania, on 6 December. The two-storey shopping centre will offer 29,000 sqm of leasable space, following an investment of over €40 million.

Deputy Mayor of Belgrade, Goran Vesić and CEO of MPC Properties Ingo Nissen have officially laid down a foundation stone at the construction site of a new shopping centre in Belgrade with over 43,000 sqm of sales space and a total built area of 130,000 sqm. The project is a joint venture of MPC Properties, the largest investor in the region of South-East Europe and Atterbury Europe, focused on shopping centre investments and retail development opportunities in Europe, which will collectively invest more than €110 million in this project.

CEC Bank and Veranda Mall have signed two financing agreements totalling €34 million, aiming to refinance the development of the project and finance the expansion and modernisation of the shopping centre. Both funding rounds were provided in the form of investment credits for a period of 15 years.

Since the beginning of the year, more than €2.1 billion has been invested in Polish retail assets. JLL Poland summarised the situation on the local retail market at the end of Q3 2018.

Arena Mall shopping centre in Bacau, a reference for the retail market in the Moldova region, will enter into a comprehensive extension and modernization process that will result in a 60% increase of its leasable area and in the construction of a multi-storey car park.

There is room for online and conventional channel retail to continue co-existing side by side in the short to medium term in the CEE-6 markets, according to Colliers International. The solid further €71.5 billion expansion of retail sales out to 2022, 4.9% growth per annum overall, creates enough evolutionary room for multiple concepts to continue thriving. Conservative growth scenario sees e-commerce in CEE-6 expanding 8.8% per annum from a baseline of €13.1 billion to €20 billion.

Ikea intends to complete the construction of a €50 million retail park in Belgrade by the end of 2020, the company’s CEO for SEE, Stefan Vanoverbeke said.

Futureal Group signed a loan agreement for €150 million (roughly HUF 48 billion) with a consortium led by UniCredit acting as Bookrunner and Facility Agent. UniCredit and Erste Group will finance Buda's biggest shopping centre with equal parts, marking one of the largest shopping centre-related financings in Hungary over the past ten years. The construction of Etele Plaza, with a gross area of 137,000 square meters, is already underway.

Immofinanz has renounced its plans for the construction of a Stop Shop retail park in Braşov citing the lengthy process of obtaining a construction permit. The developer is considering selling the land.

pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank provided a facility of €68 million to ECE. pbb acted as arranger and sole lender under the facility.