Benson Elliot, a UK-based private equity real estate fund manager, acting on behalf of its pan-European fund, Benson Elliot Real Estate Partners V L.P. has acquired Marynarska Business Park (MBP), an office complex in Warsaw, from a fund managed by Heitman Real Estate. The price paid was c. €65 million.

406,000 sqm of retail space was handed over on the Polish market in 2019. The development pipeline currently stands at approximately 500,000 sqm, 85% of which is scheduled for opening by the end of 2020. Going forward, investors’ interest will increasingly shift towards smaller cities below 100,000 inhabitants. Cushman & Wakefield has summarized the Polish retail market.

CBS International, part of the Cushman & Wakefield Group, has been assigned to provide facility management services for the Blue Center office building in New Belgrade by owner Bluehouse Capital.

The stock of industrial and logistics space on the Romanian market has exceeded the 4 million sqm threshold, 90% of the total stock being concentrated in eight large cities from the southern, central and western parts of Romania, according to a new report by the Cushman & Wakefield Echinox.

In 2019, the valuation department of Cushman & Wakefield Echinox evaluated properties with a cumulative value of €4.2 billion, while estimating an increase of 15% of the valuation volume for the upcoming year.

Office take-up in Prague has been slowly decreasing since 2017, cooling down further last year. Companies relocate or expand less often and increasingly more of them prefer to stay in their current location. Compared with earlier years, the share of major transactions in excess of 3,000 sqm was lower last year. The situation is not dramatic, however, as area absorption remains relatively high. This development can affect rents, though – their current amount will become untenable. By contrast, Brno saw a record-breaking increase in take-up and a strong share of major transactions last year, with rent amounts increasing as well, according to Cushman & Wakefield’s report.

In the last five years, the Romanian real estate market has attracted over 20 new investors from all over the world, the most active of them making acquisitions with a total value of approximately €1.5 billion, according to Cushman & Wakefield Echinox.

The year 2019 was a record one for the Prague hospitality sector in terms of transactions: the amount of investments in hospitality properties exceeded €500 million. This is the highest figure in history and twice the average for the last five years. This is also the first time that the Czech Republic has made it to the Top 10 in the European hospitality investment chart – to number nine. In 2020, the volume of hospitality transactions could become twice as high – €1 billion, according to Cushman & Wakefield.

Occupier demand for office space in Warsaw remained robust, with 878,000 sqm transacted in 2019, up by 2% on the peak year 2018. Cushman & Wakefield presented a summary of 2019 on the Warsaw office market.

At the end of 2019, Poland’s total industrial stock topped 18.6 million sqm, with warehouse supply hitting a record high of 2.72 million sqm in the past 12 months. Compared to the previous year, warehouse space availability improved significantly on most of the nation’s regional markets. Cushman & Wakefield presents a summary of the Polish industrial market.