JLL has appointed Miroslav Barnas as Country Manager of its Czech Republic business, which is headquartered in Prague, with immediate effect. He will lead the Czech business alongside his existing responsibilities as Country Manager for JLL's business in Slovakia.

2016 reached the volume of €11.8bn in investment markets across Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania, according to a research report by Colliers International. Aside from Poland, investment flows in 2017 will be close to or higher than 2016’s.  The retail sector might see continued rental growth and high investment levels across the region.

With effect from this January, Cushman & Wakefield is the manager of both shopping centres in Mladá Boleslav. Both Olympia Mladá Boleslav, which Cushman & Wakefield has been managing since 2015, and Bondy shopping centre are now under the management of one company. CPI Property Group owns both centres.

Total real estate investment volume in the Czech Republic exceeded €3.7 billion in 2016, CBRE revealed. The most notable transactions in 2016 were the sale of P3 Logistics Parks, the Park and Florentinum, with 67 transactions being mediated on the Czech market in total. 

AEW has sold the Smíchov Gate office building in Prague 5 after almost ten years of ownership on behalf of one of the funds managed by AEW. The new owner is Redside, manager of real estate open-ended investment fund NOVA Real Estate (SICAV). Cushman & Wakefield facilitated the sale of the property.

CA Immo has completed negotiations with Union Investment Real Estate GmbH on acquiring 49% of shares each in the office buildings Danube House in Prague and Building A of Infopark in Budapest, both so far part of the open-ended property fund UniImmo: Europe. The deal, which has already been closed, will make an immediate positive contribution to long-term profitability by around €3 million.

CPI Property Group anticipates the acquisition of a retail portfolio located in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania from funds managed by CBRE Global Investors. If completed, this can become the largest real estate deal of the region in 2017.

CBRE Global Investors has acquired, on behalf of a separate account client, Prague’s Letňany Shopping Centre from Tesco. The value of the transaction has not been disclosed.

In 2016, new supply totalled 497,000 sqm on the Czech industrial market and at the end of the year a further 426,600 sqm of storage and industrial space was under construction. Prime headline rents achieved in the Czech Republic remained stable during Q4 2016 and currently stand at €4.25 sqm/month. The Industrial Research Forum has published its preliminary industrial market figures for Q2 2016.

According to JLL’s review of last year, the Czech industrial market has exceeded the 6 million sqm mark in 2016 which makes it – along with the Polish one – one of the most advanced markets in CEE. 2016 gross-take up on the Czech industrial market totalled 1.2 million sqm which makes it one of the best years on record after the similarly successful years such of 2014 and 2015. Due to strong constant demand, the national average vacancy rate declined to 4%, which is the decade´s low and one of the lowest indicators in the market history.