Cushman & Wakefield announced its strategic partnership with Fifth Wall, a venture capital firm focused on technology solutions for the global real estate industry.

Employees working in modern offices in Bucharest spend an average of 46 minutes between home and work, while 52% of them consider the commuting time to be long or too long, according to the first edition of the Working Habits and Commuting Patterns study, realised by Cushman & Wakefield Echinox.

Following several successful transactions in Prague (Waltrovka, Rustonka, Main Point Pankrác), the sale of Bratislava’s Twin City Tower marks another major Central European deal involving a Korean investor. Cushman & Wakefield, which over the course of the past few months has helped bring a total of €600 million of Korean capital to the region, summarised the phenomenon.

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.

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.

Romania was ranked fifth at a European level in 2018 regarding the deliveries of retail space in retail parks, being overtaken in this hierarchy only by France, Spain, Great Britain and Italy, according to Cushman & Wakefield’s report.

New research from Cushman & Wakefield has revealed European retail park floorspace increased by 2.2% in 2018, reaching a total of 50.1 million sqm, with France and Spain leading the way in terms of new schemes. The report states that 995,000 sqm of new retail park space was completed in Europe last year, down 15% on 2017. A stable development trend is expected going forward, with 1.4 million sqm of new retail park space scheduled for opening in 2019/2020. Nevertheless, quick and easy construction and a growing number of schemes below 5,000 sqm are expected to boost the number of openings.

Cushman & Wakefield Echinox was commissioned to manage the Eminescu Office building, which has recently been delivered in Bucharest, near Piaţa Romană. This is the third office building that has been taken over for management purposes by Cushman & Wakefield Echinox since the beginning of the year, with the Asset Services department being responsible for the day-to-day management of the building, tenant relationship management, operational supervision, financial services and ownership reporting, through on-site specialists and also from the company’s headquarters, coordinated by Mihaela Petruescu, Head of Asset Services.

Romania is the fifth most attractive manufacturing market in Europe and was ranked 12th globally, according to the Manufacturing Risk Index 2019 study, conducted by the Cushman & Wakefield.

Approximately €754 million was invested in Polish commercial property in the first quarter of 2019, according to Cushman & Wakefield’s latest investment market report.