The rapid growth of e-commerce will completely transform the retail market within the next few years. Shopping centres will need to adapt to changing consumer needs in order to stay in business but experts believe that many will not survive. Booming online sales, on the other hand, present a great opportunity for further growth in logistics. Members of the retail panel at CEE Property Forum, moderated by Andreas Ridder, Chairman CEE at CBRE, discussed the future of the business.

Through its subsidiary NEPI Rockcastle has acquired the Arena Plaza shopping centre in Budapest from Symmetry Arena Ingatlankezelő Kft. The aggregate purchase price paid for the transaction was €275 million, resulting in an acquisition yield of approximately 6.2%.

Galeria Północna, GTC’s latest retail development in the Polish capital has officially opened. The mall has a total leasable area of 64,800 sqm and is LEED Gold pre-certified.

AFI Europe set the cornerstone of AFI Brasov, the company’s third shopping mall in Romania and announced the advancement of construction works. AFI Brasov will include 200 shops and retail units with 80% of total space already leased. The first stage of construction includes a shopping center with a total gross leasable area of 45,000 sqm and one of the two Class A office towers that stretch over an area of 25,000 sqm GLA. The investment at this stage is of over €120 million. The company estimates that the delivery date of the project is Q1 2019.

By the end of H2 2017 space under construction by Echo Investment increased to over 1 million sqm, from 677,000 sqm at the end of 2016. According to its latest financial report, the company is moving forward with a number of residential, office and retail developments.

JSE listed Echo Polska Properties (EPP) released its interim results for the six-month period ended June 2017. During the period EPP successfully concluded €262 million in acquisitions, boosting the portfolio to €1.7 billion.

Knight Frank has been appointed sole agent of the Galeria Ostrowiec shopping mall. Experts from the company’s Retail Agency will diversify the offer of the shopping mall, owned by First Property Group.

Delta Holding subsidiary Delta Real Estate, in cooperation with AP investments, has finalised the acquisition of a shopping mall in Varna, Bulgaria. The project is worth €120 million and it will be completed in May 2018.

CTP has agreed to sell its non-core assets to DMO Invest for approximately €40 million. The sale involved CTP’s subsidiary CT Retail—a holding company for a portfolio of supermarkets and other retail properties.

Tesco’s department store next to Brno’s main railway station has been sold to British developer Crestyl for an undisclosed sum. The supermarket will continue to operate at its current location.