The third fund of Czech investor Arete Group has acquired a modern, highly specialized production facility with a research and development centre and with the potential for further development in Kežmarok, Slovakia. The value of the investment exceeded €10 million.

Croatia-based hotel group Arena Hospitality Group d.d.¸ through its local subsidiary has successfully completed the acquisition of Hotel 88 Rooms in Belgrade. The transaction value amounted to €5.95 million (HRK 45 million).

According to experts of Cushman & Wakefield, this year’s total volume of transactions is expected to reach €9.4 billion in Central Europe, which will represent a one-third decrease on last year’s figure. Poland’s share in the total transaction volume - albeit down by one-fourth compared with last year - will hit approximately 60%.

Real estate asset and investment manager GalCap Europe has acquired the Koszykowa 54 office building in Warsaw. The seller is a mutual fund managed by UBS Real Estate GmbH. The office building was acquired under the mandate of a German pension fund and complements the existing CEE component within the investor's individual fund structure, which is managed by 2IP Institutional Investment Partners.

J&T Banka has acquired the eight-story Rustonka office complex in Prague 8 from Gramexo, which is part of a group of companies affiliated with the J&T Group, for €80 million (CZK 2.1 billion).

Immofinanz is continuing the expansion of its Stop Shop retail park brand, as announced, and has added eight locations to the portfolio shortly before the end of the year. Six fully rented retail parks in Serbia and the Czech Republic with roughly 43,000 sqm were purchased from Mitiska REIM, a Belgian investor specialised in these types of commercial properties. In addition, Immofinanz closed the purchase of a fully rented retail park (approx. 5,500 sqm) in Voitsberg, Austria, during the fourth quarter of 2020. The portfolio in Croatia will be increased by one property in the city of Ludbreg.

Penta Real Estate has sold the Churchill Square office complex near Prague’s main railway station for more than €150 million (CZK 4 billion) to Českomoravská Nemovitostní and Corporate Finance House Group. This is the largest office transaction on the Czech investment market this year. The acquisition was financed by German bank Helaba.

The first 3 quarters of 2020 across the CEE-6 have seen a 37.5% decrease (year-on-year) in overall office investment volumes. With positive news of vaccines due for deployment early in the new year, offices volumes are expected to rebound in 2021 according to a new report by Colliers International.

City Park Hostivař in Prague 10 has been acquired by a Western European investment company, represented by BNP Paribas Real Estate. The name of the buyer and the purchase price has not been disclosed.

2020 has been dominated on the commercial real estate market in Poland by the pandemic, whose impact varied from sector to sector though. The pandemic has, however, given rise to or accelerated a number of developments, some of which are likely to stay with us for longer. Real estate advisory firm Savills explores future trends in its preliminary summary of 2020 and its outlook for the next 12 months.