Immofinanz has successfully closed the package sale of its roughly 26% investment in CA Immobilien Anlagen AG to SOF-11 Starlight S.à r.l., a member company of the Starwood Capital Group.

Portland Trust has acquired a 16,000 sqm plot of land on Jiului street near Bucurestii Noi Boulevard. The transaction price is estimated at about €5-6 million, according to zf.ro.

Before 2016 nearly all transactions related to the acquisition of property in Poland were conducted in the form of asset deals. By now, share deals have become a popular alternative. Sylwia Toczyska, Director of Client Services at Vistra Poland talked to Property Forum about the current structure of transactions concluded in Poland.

Metro Properties, the real estate subsidiary of Metro AG, has sold a property in Poznań with a retail building under a long-term lease to Castorama to French investor Corum Asset Management. The purchase price amounted to €20.3 million.

M7 Real Estate has recently sold three assets, Innovations Business Park in Budapest, Hungary and Sanitas Industrial Park and Uhrineves Industrial Park both located in Prague, Czech Republic, for a total of circa €24 million, delivering investors a strong increase in value.

In Central and Eastern Europe, hotel owners are experiencing record months in terms of average daily rates which was the primary driver of the double-digit RevPAR (Revenue per available room) growth recorded by central European cities in 2017. The growing trend was also seen in the first half of this year (H1 2018). The only exception was Warsaw where RevPAR dropped slightly due to declining occupancy, yet the prices of rooms increased as in other capitals. The higher room rates translated to notable gains in hotels’ profitability which brought significant interests from investors. The lack of hotel properties available for sale and shortage of development sites in prime locations is turning attention to conversions of existing buildings into hotels. As the demand continues to grow and the development pipeline remains limited in most markets (except for Warsaw and Vienna), profitability is expected to stay strong also in the coming years.

What will be the most well-performing investment products of the coming period? How does political risk factor into investment decisions? How many years of growth do we have left in the current cycle? These are some of the questions that members of the investment panel at CEE Property Forum 2018 answered.

Immofinanz AG signed agreements for the purchase of 19,499,437 bearer shares in S Immo AG, which represent an investment of roughly 29.14%, on 18 April 2018. Following the receipt of the relevant anti-trust approvals, the closing of the transaction took place on 21 September 2018 and the acquired S IMMO shares were formally transferred to Immofinanz.

With investor appetite for newly-built offices remaining competitive there is also a continuous demand coming from investors seeking older, yet sustainably rentable offices with high occupancy – these refurbished offices remain attractive for the active funds in Budapest. This time CBRE has transacted Bluehouse Capital’s Margit Palace sale to Adventum TRIUM Real Estate Fund.

Real estate professionals surveyed by the RICS in Q2 2018 now believe that the Czech investment market has reached the peak of the current cycle while the Hungarian and Polish markets are also close to peaking. Nevertheless, market sentiment is still positive on both the occupier and investment market in all CEE countries monitored by the RICS Commercial Property Monitor, including Croatia and Romania.