The first half of the “pandemic year” closed with a total value of investment transactions worth €408 million in Romania, around 18% above the first semester of 2019, with office assets accounting nearly 86% of volumes, according to Colliers International’s market report. Still, the outlook is uncertain since several large big-ticket items have either been frozen or fell through. On the opposite pole, the local land market continues to see deals closing and significant interest.

Kajima Properties Europe and Savills Investment Management have launched a new strategic partnership with the completion of the acquisition of Panattoni Europe’s interest in the 144,880 sqm Łódź City VI logistics park in Central Poland.

AFI Europe NV has concluded a new agreement with NEPI for the purchase of 4 Class A office projects in Romania, with a total GLA of 118,500 sqm. The transaction value is of €290 million and the portfolio’s takeover is scheduled to be finalised within the next four months.   

Atrium European Real Estate has completed the sale of five retail assets in Poland to Metropol Group. The value of the transaction remains confidential. The seller was represented by the Avison Young and JLL investment teams throughout the transaction.

Panattoni and Marvipol have sold two city logistics parks in Warsaw to LaSalle Investment Management. The facilities, totalling nearly 25,000 sqm, were sold for approx. €30 million.

Belgian property developer Weerts bought a 30-hectare lot from Erste Real Estate near Budapest, advisory firm VLK Cresa said in a statement.

M7 Real Estate has undertaken its first acquisition on behalf of M7 CEREF II, its value-add opportunities fund focused on offices and logistics/industrial properties in key Central European markets, including Poland, Hungary, Croatia and Czech Republic. The investors purchased the 12,672 sqm Atrium office building in Katowice.

Romanian real estate developer One United Properties is selling part of its One Cotroceni Park urban regeneration project, currently under development in Bucharest, for €25 million. The amount raised is to be invested in the further development of the project, profit.ro reports.

According to Savills, commercial property investment activity hit €2.92 billion across Poland in H1 2020, up by almost 5% on the same period in 2019. Despite COVID-19 challenges, it was the second-best result in the first half of a year on record. Savills anticipates that the pandemic’s impact will be noticeable in H2 2020, but the investment volume is unlikely to fall by more than 20% compared to last year’s all-time high.

The first half of 2020 saw a record high investment activity with €3.5 billion of investment transactions closed on the Polish market. Although this was a 30% higher result compared to the corresponding period of last year, achieving a full-year result similar to the record-breaking €7.8 billion volume of 2019 may be difficult, according to Avison Young.