Logistics developer VGP is committed to further implementing comprehensive and sustainable measures along its sustainability strategy in the next years to achieve carbon neutrality by 2025. To this end, the company has now set itself new targets.

Real estate investment manager Garbe Institutional Capital, headquartered in Hamburg (Germany), is expanding into Central and Eastern Europe. Managing and developing retail, office and residential real estate assets, the company will initially focus on the Polish and Czech markets. With its commitment to the CEE region, Garbe Institutional Capital provides German institutional investors with access to high-quality real estate investments in economically prospering metropolitan areas in the eastern part of the European Union. The new CEE business is based in Prague and headed by Ben Maudling as Managing Director, Head of CEE.

The Management Board and the Supervisory Board of Immofinanz have decided to launch a voluntary public takeover offer to acquire a controlling interest pursuant to Section 25a of the Austrian Takeover Act for all outstanding no-par value bearer shares of S Immo not owned by the bidder.

The past year has turned every aspect of our lives upside down, including the way we work and use office space. CEE-based flex office provider New Work has updated its annual research that confronts these issues and shows how our habits to use office as a place of work have changed over the past year. Research shows that flexible office space in Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania has increased tenfold and workplace needs now are completely different than ever before, so there should be an office ready to use at every corner.

CTP has announced its intention to launch an initial offering and to apply for admission to listing and trading of its shares on Euronext Amsterdam. The logistics investor and developer aims to raise between €800 million and €1 billion.

S Immo AG's Supervisory Board has designated the successor of Ernst Vejdovszky, founding father of the company, whose board term will expire on 30 June 2021, and has newly appointed the Management Team. Dr. Bruno Ettenauer will take over as CEO from 15 March 2021 with a term of three years. DI Herwig Teufelsdorfer will be appointed as S Immo AG's CIO (Chief Investment Officer) and will take up his position on the Executive Board at the latest at the beginning of the second quarter of 2021. The contract of Friedrich Wachernig, MBA as COO (Chief Operating Officer) has been prolonged for a further three years until 30 June 2024.

The Q4 2020 results of the RICS Global Commercial Property Monitor continue to point to a challenging backdrop across Europe. Both the office and retail sectors remain under significant pressure, with demand still falling sharply amid the difficult economic climate induced by the pandemic. On a brighter note, supported by structural tailwinds, the industrial sector continues to defy this downbeat overall assessment, prompting respondents to upgrade expectations for rental and capital value growth.

Anna Duchnowska, Head of Asset Management Europe at Invesco Real Estate talked to Property Forum about investing in property in the times of pandemic, the new segmentation of the real estate market and likely changes in financing conditions.

According to JLL, the value of real estate investment transactions in Central and Eastern Europe totalled more than €9.7 billion in 2020. Poland with €5.6 billion continued its dominance among CEE countries, with the Czech Republic in second place with €1.5 billion (after excluding the Residomo deal of €1.3 billion). Total volumes in Hungary amounted to €1.25 billion, while in Romania and Slovakia total value hit €900 and €525 million respectively.

After the great year in 2019 and a very good start to 2020, the coronavirus pandemic has halted the expansion of Asian investment funds in Poland. However, analysts are convinced that it is just a temporary situation and a new transaction closed this month also suggests that the flow of Asian capital has not dried up.