Hotel investment activity in CEE – from the Adriatic Coast to the Baltic Sea – has been booming in the second half of 2016, with numerous hotel properties being on the market and several transactions taking place, as hotel property specialist Christie & Co reports.

Immofinanz is continuing the expansion of its successful Stop Shop retail park portfolio with the acquisition of eight locations in Slovakia and Hungary. The purchase price for these properties totals approx. €79.0 million. The newly acquired retail parks have an occupancy rate of roughly 98% and generate annual rental income of approx. €6.6 million. The transactions will close in several steps, presumably by the end of the first quarter of 2017. Immofinanz‘s Stop Shop portfolio will then cover 66 locations in seven countries with roughly 449,000 sqm of rentable space and a book value of more than EUR 600.0 million. Further locations in Serbia and Poland are currently in the preparation phase for project development. 

Penta Investments has sold its Florentinum office building, the company’s first development completed in the Czech Republic, to Chinese investment group CEFC. Florentinum, a LEED Platinum certified property opened in 2014 and is home to 70 long-term tenants, many of them blue chip companies such as EY, HSBC Bank, Bank of China, Havel Holásek & Partners Law Firm and RSJ Investment Group. The value of the transaction has not been disclosed. 

According to Cushman & Wakefield, commercial real estate investment activity in the core Central European markets of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania reached €6.05 billion in the first three quarters of 2016, a 37% increase y-o-y, albeit with reduced activity during the third quarter. Investment in the CE region slipped back following a strong second quarter. The volume of assets traded totalled €1.4bn in Q3 2016, down over 20% a year ago and half Q2 volumes.

CBRE Global Investors has acquired on behalf of its investors, the ‘Hillwood Portfolio’ consisting of four standing logistics parks in Poland totalling 220,608 sqm. The vendor was Hillwood. CBRE Global Investors has also agreed to acquire from Hillwood a pipeline of projects currently under development. These consist of two new parks and two extensions in Poland totalling 134,165 sqm and two new developments in Germany totalling 71,684 sqm.

On 4 November 2016, NEPI, through its subsidiary NE Property Cooperatief UA, concluded an agreement to acquire all the issued shares in, and shareholders’ claims against, Granit Polus Laniste d.o.o. from Lobularia Ventures Limited and repay Laniste’s entire outstanding debt. Laniste wholly owns a shopping mall of 62,100 sqm of GLA situated in Zagreb, Croatia, that opened in November 2010, named Arena Centar and adjacent additional land plots of approximately 4.4 ha. The aggregate purchase price for the transaction is €237.5 million and was settled from NEPI’s existing cash resources.

Echo Investment has signed a preliminary agreement with Invesco Real Estate European Fund (IREEF) to sell its flagship project, the Q22 office building in Warsaw.The value of the transaction will be established in the final agreement and it will be calculated on the basis of a formula which takes into account the actual sales date, a commercialization level and a cap rate of 5.35%. 

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund has acquired a 50 percent interest in a logistics portfolio comprising eight buildings and developable land in Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary, in a joint venture with Prologis. During the same period, three logistics properties in France have been sold.

CA Immo has concluded an agreement with WOOD & Company to sell the Šestka Shopping Center in Prague, continuing its strategic withdrawal from segments that do not belong to the core business. The centre covers more than 27,300 sqm of retail space and had been part of the asset portfolio of CA Immo since 2011. The buyer is a fund of WOOD & Company, the leading investment bank in Emerging Europe. The transaction, which is subject to the standard conditions precedent, is expected to be closed within the next weeks. It was agreed not to disclose the purchase price. Law firm Clifford Chance Prague advised the seller on the disposal.

M7 Real Estate, a pan-European investor and asset manager, has raised its first Central European fund. M7 Central European Real Estate Fund I (M7 CEREF I) has received investor commitments from a number of family office and high net worth individuals totalling over €35 million to be deployed in the region. Following this initial raise, M7 CEREF I has acquired Oregon House in Prague.