A joint venture between a fund managed by the Real Estate Group of Ares Management Corporation and Griffin Real Estate announced the acquisition of a 98.04% stake in Murapol SA, a leading Polish property development company. The value of the deal was not disclosed.

Cordia has successfully acquired 63.7 million shares of Polnord, one of the largest development companies in Poland. Transaction worth €31.7 million provided the Hungarian founded developer with a control stock of shares exceeding 65% in the increased capital.

Spanish-based developer, Gran Via Real Estate has invested more than €200 million in Romania in the last 15 years and completed about 1,800 apartments until the end of 2019. The company has specialized in the conversion of former industrial lots into residential projects, communities where thousands of families have started a new life.

A group of investors have acquired 35 one-bedroom apartments in the Central District 4 Elements residential project, developed by Forty Management in the capital’s Titan area, for €3.4 million (excluding VAT). The investors will lease the apartments.

Developers operating on the six largest Polish cities sold a total of 17,600 units in the fourth quarter of 2019, which is 9% more than in the previous quarter. This increased annual sales to 65,400 units, which is nearly 1% better than last year. It was also the second-best result in the history of the primary housing market in Poland, according to JLL’s report.

Round Hill Capital announced that funds advised by Blackstone Tactical Opportunities and Round Hill Capital have exchanged contracts to sell the shares of a residential property portfolio in the Czech Republic owned and operated by Residomo to Heimstaden Bostad AB for a total purchase price of €1.3 billion.

Hungarian real estate brokerage firm Duna House has bought a loan broker in Poland for €1 million (PLN 4.3 million) and expect the deal to increase the volume of brokered loans in Poland by approximately 60%, the company announced on the Budapest Stock Exchange website.

In 2019, the Polish housing market experienced an acceleration and increase of projects in the rental and private student housing sectors. Poland is still on the radar of large foreign investors and some of them have been able to conclude spectacular deals. Although potential institutional buyers still aren’t able to purchase turn-key portfolios on an expected scale, and entering the market mostly means building new stock, the institutional rental sector is drawing more and more interest and will undoubtedly become a desired category of safe assets in 2020.

The Catella European Residential (CER) Fund has acquired a mixed-use development project of residential apartments and student accommodation in the Polish city of Kraków for around €20 million from U.S. developer Hines.

Retail developer Apsys Polska has started preparing its first residential project, which will be built in Warsaw’s Mokotów area in a joint venture with an undisclosed partner.