The departure of ICU Medical from the manufacturing complex in the southwestern Slovak city of Vráble, made a modern light–industrial facility available for sale on a vacant possession basis. The complex consists of facility with a gross usable area of 7,000 sqm and 3 ha of available land for further development The new owner, Slovak company TESGAL, provides surface treatments of metal parts used mostly in the automotive and consumer industry. 

Spanish investment fund, Azora Europa l, has sold Galleries Louvre, their prime office property in Prague 5, to Redstone Real Estate, a private equity platform. The counterparties agreed not to disclose the price. The property is a mid-sized office building offering approximately 4,800 sqm of prime administrative space and is fully and long-term let.  

In recent years, Łódź has enhanced its position as an important destination for companies from the business services sector in Poland. Numerous global brands, such as Accenture, Fujitsu Technology Solutions, Infosys, TomTom and Xerox, have established their business services units in Łódź. JLL summarised 2016 on the office market in Łódź.

After 2015's record-breaking performance, when demand totalled 64,900 sqm, 2016 closed with a very good result – office lease agreements for 64,100 sqm were signed in Poznań. An interesting trend in 2016 was the increased share of pre-let agreements in overall demand - much higher than in previous years. Also, more companies have decided to expand their office space, illustrating how buoyant the market is. JLL summarised 2016 on Poznań's office market.

JLL has appointed Silviana Petre Badea as Managing Director of its Romanian business, based in Bucharest, with effect from 1 March 2017.

900,000 sqm of office space was delivered to market in Poland in 2016 – the market's best ever result. Furthermore, demand was 1.34 million sqm. Kraków and Wrocław remain the leaders among office markets outside Warsaw, while an excellent result was recorded by Łódź.JLL summarised 2016 on the office market in both Warsaw and the other eight major cities in Poland.

Office tenants can look forward to a new supply of administrative space that is going to be delivered to the Prague market in 2017 and 2018. Last´s year paradox, when the economy was booming and the market registered a robust demand for new office space, but the amount of new completions dropped to a historical low, is forecast to be cleared out in the months to come. Currently, there are 330 000 sqm of new offices under construction in Prague out of which approximately half (171 000 sqm) is expected to be delivered this year. JLL looked at the largest office submarkets of the Czech capital in detail.

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.

According to JLL, almost €900 million were invested into Romanian property in 2016, 35% more than in the previous year. 2016 has been a record breaking year at a country level all over CEE with the highest ever volumes recorded in the Czech Republic and Slovakia and second best ever results recorded in Poland, Hungary and the SEE region.

Nearly 100,000 sqm of new office space was delivered to the Budapest market in 2016, the highest figure since 2010. Meanwhile, demand picked up in the last quarter of the year with a large share of the total leasing volume made up of pre-leases and new transactions. At the same time, the office vacancy rate has returned to its downward trajectory, reaching 9.5%, the lowest rate on record.