Residential Developers

Transcription

echarris.com
21st-22nd September | Prague
11007
Volume 17 | Issue 07 | July / August 2011
Czech Republic 2011
CiJ Awards
Czech Republic | Hungary | Poland | Romania | Slovakia
11
Residential
Developers
in CEE: 2000 - 2010
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Contents
regional
3
4Regional
Editorial, 4 | Indicators, 5 | Real Talk, 6 | Company news, 8 | EuroNews, 10 | Financial Page, 11 | REAS:
Consolidation coming for CEE residential sector, 12 | TOP 50 Residential: 2000 - 2010, 14 | CEE
Marketing professionals survey, 64 | Events, 74 | Appointments, 75 | DBH, 76 | From the CIJ Archives, 78
28 Czech republic
Same old stories in Prague 7 tender, 28 | Massive brownfield to transform Prague‘s center ,30 | Phase
II of Classic 7 vs. Holešovice vacancy, 31 | Dutch done with Czech vacation homes, 32 | South Town
in Brno finally lifts off, 33 | Aristocratic development planned, 34 | Housing starts roundup, 35 |
Lordship delayed over spa-town politics, 36
38Hungary
Dallos: We haven‘t hit bottom yet, 38 | Duna Bellview nearly half-let, 40
42Poland
Business Garden is speculatively sustainable, 42 | News ,43 | Goodman makes good in spec challenge,
44 | News, 45 | HB Reavis clinches PKP deal, 46 | Puzdrowski: Prices could still fall, 47 | Quick fix eludes
residential sector, 48 | A2: Made in China...not!, 51 | Deals : C&A, Robyg and Grup Buma 52
52Romania
Land prices in free-fall, 52 | CEDER 2011 Round-up, 54 | Offices going up at Cotroceni, 56
58Slovakia
HB Reavis launches fund, 58 | Residential’s rebirth in Bratislava, 60 | Hajdu: Focus shifting to
commercial, 62
CEO
ROBERT FLETCHER • fletcher@cijjournal.com
SALES director CR & SK
Ing. ZUZANA VODRÁŽKOVÁ • vodrazkova@cijjournal.com
EDITOR IN CHIEF
ROBERT MCLEAN • mclean@cijjournal.com
CZECH EDITOR.......................................................................................................
NINA FIBIGEROVÁ • redakce@cijjournal.com
Polish EDITOR....................................................................................................
Wojciech KoŚĆ • kosc@cijjournal.com
Polish Photographer..........................................................................
Bartosz Modrzewski • bartoszmodrzewski@wp.pl
contributorS...................................................................................................
AMELIA TURP-BALAZS,
Marcin Śmietana
EVENTS & editorial coordinator............................................
Dušan Krnjaja
Tel: (+420) 222 220 800 • krnjaja@cijjournal.com
Sales & Marketing Manager HU..............................................
Dalma mÓzes
Tel: (+36) 202 396 736 • mozes@cijjournal.com
OFFICE ADMINISTRATION HU...............................................................
Zsuzsanna Sarkozy
Tel: (+36) 1 373 0429 • sarkozy@cijjournal.com
sales & events manager PL............................................................
Marta Niezgoda
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OFFICE ADMINISTRATION RO................................................................
Monalisa Musteata
Tel: (+40) 213 110 091 • monalisa@cijjournal.com
Sales & events Manager RO...........................................................
Adela Balan
Tel: (+40) 743 794 364 • balan@cijjournal.com
DESIGN..........................................................................................................................
JOZEF NEVEDEL • design@cijjournal.com
Journalist............................................................................................................
Donata Karpik
Tel: (+48) 22 606 39 73; • donata@cijjournal.com
office manager CZ......................................................................................
Petra Šustová
Tel: (+420) 224 225 601 • sustova@cijjournal.com
office manager PL......................................................................................
Anna Mieczkowska
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ISSN: 1214-9896
4
Issue 07
Editorial
states failing as investors
Back in 2008, a discussion was going on in Poland about the possibility of using Chinese contractors to help complete the
huge volume of construction work required before the top national football teams from around Europe begin showing up
in June 2012. Covec, the Chinese contractor Poland’s road agency (GDDIkA) has just fired from the A2 motorway job, was
unable to live up to its promise to build the road at a miraculously low price.
It’s easy to blame contractors for going over budget, or for failing to estimate the final cost accurately. But it’s the investor’s
job to weed out overly-optimistic bidders. Unfortunately, the A2 fiasco fits into a pattern of wretched incompetence by the
state as investor. As the biggest spender in the country, you’d think governments would understand that assembling hypercompetent teams to manage investments would be a matter of the highest importance. Instead, they get yes-men who
refuse responsibility by choosing on price alone.
To make Poland’s Euro 2012 preparations even worse, it was recently discovered that the stairs at the new national football
stadium are so dangerous that completion has been set back by months. Again, it would be simple to blame the builders
or designers, but the responsibility for overseeing investments lies ultimately with the investor.
Botched state investments are in no way a problem limited to Poland. The Czech Republic, which consistently builds motorways at prices far higher than those in Western Europe, recently said it wouldn’t use CZK 620m in subsidies from the EU
for road construction work. The reason was that officials fear its planning is riddled with corruption. Romania has suffered
similar difficulties with EU funds.
It’s just not good enough. Firing those who made poor decisions is the obvious place to start, but it’s really the whole system
that needs to be overhauled. Governments across Europe are demanding more from taxpayers at the same time as they cut
back on the services they offer. It’s time they took a closer look at the effectiveness of the money they do manage to collect.
It’s not just that taxpayers have the right to demand competence and efficiency, but because an inability to invest well is
just plain dangerous: Greece spent billions on new stadiums for the Athens Olympics and extended metro lines to provide
access to them. Today, many of them serve as little more than expensive grass farms. Spain and Portugal absorbed billions
and billions of subsidies for the construction of gleaming new infrastructure. Need we say more?
CEE countries never received the massive level of subsidies and loans from the European Union that earlier entrants did.
There simply wasn’t the money available. Considering how things have turned out, perhaps that’s just as well.
Robert McLean
Editor In Chief
REGIONAL
Indicators
Rates 2010/2011
MAIN ECONOMIC INDICATORS 2010/2011
CZECH REPUBLIC
consumer price indices, index 2005=100
Month
Canada
Czech Republic
Germany
Hungary
Japan
Poland
Slovak Republic
Switzerland
United Kingdom
United States
1112 0102 0304
109.8109.8 110.1110.4 111.6112.0
115.1115.7 116.5116.6 116.7117.0
108.5109.6 109.2109.8 110.7110.5
131.1131.6 132.6133.1 134.6135.5
99.999.6 99.499.3 99.699.9
116.1116.6 118.0118.2 119.3119.9
115.7115.9 118.1118.5 118.9119.5
104.7104.8 104.4104.8 105.5105.6
115.6116.8 116.9117.8 118.1119.3
112.0112.2 112.8113.3 114.4115.2
30.06.2011 | Source: OECD
currency exchange rates, national units per usd
Month
5
Month
1011 12010203 04
Unemployment rate8.5%8.6%9.6%9.7%9.6%9.2%8.6%
No. of unempl. (in th.)
495.2506.6561.6571.9566.9547.8513.8
CPI monthly change-0.2%0.2%0.5%0.7%0.1%0.1%0.3%
CPI yearly change 2.0%2.0%2.3%1.7%1.8%1.7%1.6%
30.06.2011 | Source: ČSÚ, MPSV
hungary
Month
1011 1201 0203
466460462474487490481
CPI monthly change0.4%0.3%0.4%0.7%0.4%1.1%0.6%
30.06.2011 | Source: HCSO
poland
1112 0102 0304
Canada
1.011.000.990.990.980.96
Czech Republic
18.0619.0318.2717.7617.3916.77
Hungary 202.07205.95205.97198.15193.11183.24
Japan
82.5582.5882.5882.5481.6683.17
Norway
5.975.855.855.735.595.40
Poland
2.902.912.912.872.862.74
Russian Federation 30.9730.8530.0829.2928.4328.10
Switzerland
0.990.970.960.950.920.90
United Kingdom
0.630.640.630.620.620.63
long-term interest rates, percent per annum
Month
1112 0102 0304
Czech Republic
Germany
Hungary
Japan
Norway
Poland
Russian Federation
Slovak Republic
Switzerland
United Kingdom
3.63.94.04.14.14.1
2.52.93.03.23.23.3
7.47.97.77.47.37.1
1.21.11.21.21.21.2
3.33.63.83.83.83.8
5.86.06.36.36.36.1
7.88.08.08.08.1N/A
3.84.14.24.24.34.3
1.61.61.81.91.92.1
3.33.63.73.83.73.8
Month
10111201020304
Unemployment rate 11.5%11.7%12.3%13.0%13.2%13.1%12.6%
1832.61901.31912.32104.02150.02140.02040.0
30.06.2011 | Source: GUS
romania
Month
10111201020304
645.5633.5630.0615.0600.3539.7493.4
30.06.2011 | Source: WS, MMSSF
slovak REPUBLIC
Month
1011 12010203 04
Unemployment rate 12.3%12.2% 12.5%13.0%13.2%13.1% N/A
No. of unempl. (in th.) 330.2 328.3 334.9 346.2 350.9 350.3
N/A
30.06.2011 | Source: ŠÚSR
SHORT-term interest rates, percent per annum
Month
1112 0102 0304
Canada
Czech Republic
Germany
Japan
Hungary
Norway
Poland
Russian Federation
Switzerland
United Kingdom
1.21.21.21.21.21.2
1.21.21.21.21.21.2
1.01.01.01.11.21.3
0.30.30.30.30.30.3
5.96.26.16.96.66.1
2.52.62.62.62.62.7
3.94.04.14.24.24.3
4.64.74.34.6N/AN/A
0.21.71.71.70.20.2
0.80.80.80.80.80.8
RATES AGAINST EURO
Canadian Dollar
Czech Koruna
Danish Krone
Hungarian Forint
Japanese Yen
Norwegian Krone
Polish Złoty
Pound Sterling
Romanian Leu
Swedish Krona
Swiss Franc
US Dollar
CAD
1.43
CZK 24.22
DKK
7.46
HUF 265.44
JPY 117.55
NOK
7.84
PLN
3.95
GBP
0.89
RON
4.15
SEK
9.01
CHF
1.22
USD
1.47
30.06.2011 | Source: ECB
6
REGIONAL
Real Talk
highlights
Passer goes for spec in Ostrava
it will be possible to complete the project without having to wait...
Passer goes for spec in Ostrava | 10
Works have resumed on the 24,600 sqm office portion of Nová Karolina Park by PasserInvest Group and Multi Development in Ostrava. A
new investor, Gemo Olomouc, which is the project’s general contractor at the same time, has thrown in CZK 200m (€8m), in exchange for
a 40 percent stake in the project, which will provide work immediately for its employees. The project, which forms a gate to the historical
heart of Ostrava, is scheduled for completion in spring 2013.
“The crisis has frozen the office market in Ostrava...with the entrance
of the new strategic partner and the allocation of more of our own
10 capital, it will be possible to complete the project, without having to
wait for [a pre-lease] which might not turn up as well,” says Radim
Passer, chairman of the board of PasserInvest Group.
PasserInvest has retained 50 percent in the office project, while MultiDevelopment retaining a 10 percent share. Passer is determined to
start construction speculatively, and hopes he can get financing to
supplement the CZK 500m he and his partners are prepared to cover
from their own pockets.
In addition to approximately 25,000 sqm in office space the building
will offer 3,700 sqm of retail space. The developer hopes to have lease
contracts signed for 15 percent of the space by the end of the year,
despite the current 10 percent vacancy in Ostrava’s office market.
Multi Development’s shopping and leisure center is scheduled to
open next year, followed by the office portion a year later. In spring
2013 the reconstruction of the original industrial Trojhalí should be
completed as well. The total investment into these three projects is
expected to run to CZK 7bn (€287m).
the developer took part in the privatization Bellona
Ghelamco buys publishing house. Or its land | 2
...retail financing for projects is now easier to come by
Re-launching retail developments | 10
it seems clear this is what the developer is after.
Taking over Bellona gives it some 8,500 sqm between Wronia, Grzybowska and Łucka streets in Wola, with the somewhat dated Bellona
headquarters on one of the plots. Ghelamco claims that it will keep
the building, but modernize it. The company wouldn’t say what it
was going to do on the other plots but they will clearly be intended
to complement Ghelamco’s flagship development at the moment,
the 100,000+ sqm office tower Warsaw Spire. Ghelamco did much to
establish Mokotów as an office hub for Warsaw. The same process
could now be underway in Wola.
Re-launching retail developments
Polish retail projects are the current flavor of the month, and not
just for investors looking for (relatively) safe assets. Developers are
well-aware that dozens of Polish towns still lack any modern retail
facilities whatsoever. Financing was axed across the board during
the financial crisis, causing many projects to be placed in deep
freeze. Some are now being defrosted in order to take advantage
of the current lack of competition.
Two examples include Mayland’s Nimfea scheme in Piła, Apsys’
Ghelamco buys publishing house. Or its land
Łacina in Poznań, where, despite big projects like Stary Browar,
10 there’s allegedly still room for more. Agencies reports that retail
financing for projects is now easier to come by, not least because
Ghelamco has moved a step closer to developing more office space
many retailers seem to have their worst troubles behind them and
in
the
Wola
district
of
Warsaw.
To
that
end,
the
developer
took
part
2
are looking for new space. Completions in 2011 will still be weak,
- as the only bidder - in the privatization of the Bellona publishing
but the final figures for 2012 could end up being significantly
house. Ghelamco bought Bellona for PLN 47m (almost €12m) accordstronger.
ing to a press release that recounts at length what a quality business
Bellona is. It mentions the company’s land assets only in passing, but
warehouse space+
Goodman has up to 135,000 sqm
of space near Budapest available
for immediate development.
+ Miskolc
+ Nyíregyháza
+ Győr
M1
If you want to expand your business
Goodman can deliver for you.
M3
Budapest
+ Debrecen
M0
Gyál
Üllő
M7
+ Kecskemét
M6
M5
+ Szeged
+ Pécs
www.goodman.com/hu
8
REGIONAL
Company News
VF Corporation
VF Corporation has extended its contract
in PointPark Prague D8 in a transaction
brokered by CB Richard Ellis. The fashion
producer of jeans and sport brands such as
Wrangler, Lee, The North Face, Napapijri and
Nautica leases 24,768 sqm of warehouse in
the park. The park is one of two parks
developed and operated by PointPark
Properties in the Czech Republic.
Elko
Czech beverage wholesaler Elko has opened
its first ever cash & carry unit in the Berounka
Park Plzeň retail park. The move is part of an
attempt by the operators to innovate in a
fierce competitive market. Elko’s first unit in a
retail park is being described as the first cash
& carry to open in a retail park in the Czech
Republic. Cushman & Wakefield arranged
the lease of the Plzeň outlet.
UniCredit
UniCredit Bank and companies related to
the UniCredit Group are relocating to the
Filadelfie building in Prague 4, developed by
PasserInvest in the BB Centrum complex.
It’s the largest deal of the year in the Czech
office market, one that will see UniCredit fill
14 floors (of 17) in the 26,700 sqm building.
Clifford Chance advised the tenant.
.
Scala IRP Partners
ACS
The Spanish construction giant ACS acquired
majority stake in Hochtief in a hostile takeover it started last year. Hochtief’s
shareholders have already approved the new
supervisory board, controlled by ACS. The
Spanish company hopes Hochtief’s strong
balance sheet sum and order book will help it
face the severe conditions on its home
market and reduce its debt worth €8bn.
PSJ
PSJ is to open the M5 Mall in Ryazan in
September. The €120m project is a joint
venture between PPF Real Estate Holding B.V.
and PSJ New N.V. The Czech Export Bank and
EGAP financed the project. The 70,000 sqm
mall is located in Rjazan near the M5 highway
connecting Moskva with Čeljabinsk, and will
serve a catchment of 500,000 people.
Scala IRP Capital Partners acquired Galeria
Łomża from private investors as its first
investment in Poland. Galeria Narew has
already received its building permit approval,
and construction is scheduled to begin in
August. The 40,000 sqm shopping center will
have over 90 stores and 1,250 parking places
and is the only center of its size the Łomża
region. Scala is structured as a Luxembourg
closed-ended fund.
PointPark Properties
VGP
The developer VGP has sold an 80 percent
stake in six of its warehouse areas in the
Czech Republic. The transaction, worth
€140m, is to be completed in the third
quarter of 2011 and includes some Czech
development projects. VGP will keep facility
management of the parks. The transaction
follows the purchase of an 80 percent stake
in six industrial parks around Prague by
European Property Investors Special
Opportunities in spring 2011.
PST CLC has signed a contract with PointPark
Properties(P3) to lease 13,326 sqm of office
and warehouse space in PointPark Prague
D1. The logistics provider has chosen the
location with regard to a long-term client it
has in the automobile sector. Of the 140,000
sqm of space offered by the park, just one
5,300 sqm unit is left, leading P3 to begin
preparation works on a new 40,000 sqm
built-to-suit warehouse.
TPA Horwath
Consulting company TPA Horwath signed a
lease agreement in Murawa Office Park in
Poznań, an Alco Investments which is
owned by Aiga Investments and Alco. It
will move into its new 700 sqm offices and
has reserved a further 200 sqm in 2013.
Cushman & Wakefield represented the
tenant in the transaction. Murawa Office Park
was completed in March 2011. About 1,000
sqm or 25 percent of the office space in the
project is still empty.
Company News
PKP
Polish State Railways (PKP) says its tenders
for non-essential real estate are gradually
meeting with greater success. Earlier in the
crisis, just 21 percent of the tenders it
announced were actually taking place, a
number that’s jumped to 31 percent in 2011.
In all, the company plans to sell roughly 16
percent of the 104,000 ha it owns. It envisions
making PLN 190m (€48m) from such sales in
2011.
rapidly growing number of people moving
into ever-newer phases of residential
projects. The specific opportunity concerns
an 8 ha plot currently owned by the
pharmaceutical company Polski Holding
Farmaceutyczny (PHF). The plot is located
near the North Bridge, a key route between
Białołęka over the Vistula River to the metro
line on the other bank. According to PHF, the
plot will soon be ready for sale.
Local authorities in the Białołęka district of
Warsaw are lending support to the idea of
developing a major retail center to serve the
9
project also covers the construction of a
concert hall for Poland’s Radio Symphony
Orchestra. Along with investments to
develop the connecting infrastructure. The
bank has previously provided three loans to
Katowice amounting to some €93m for
upgrading the municipal infrastructure.
ghelamco
.
European Investment Bank
PHF
REGIONAL
The European Investment Bank (EIB) is
lending PLN 254.2m (€65m) to re-develop
the post-industrial city center of Katowice,
with emphasis on its cultural district. The EIB
funds will finance construction of an
International Congress Center providing
accommodation for up to 8,000 people. The
Ghelamco plans to ratchet up its turnover in
the next two years to more than €1bn. It
plans to do this through the sale of some of
its ongoing projects. The company has
65,000 sqm of office space under
construction in Warsaw at the moment, with
248,000 sqm planned over the next five
years, including its flagship project, Warsaw
Spire office tower of more than 100,000 sqm.
10
REGIONAL
EuroNews
ACS buyout of Hochtief goes through
The Spanish contractor ACS acquired majority
stake in the German builder Hochtief in a hostile
take-over it began last year. The German construction giant held out for nine months, until ACS’s stake in the company crossed the 50 percent threshold. Hochtief’s shareholders
have already approved the new company’s supervisory board,
which is now dominated by ACS. The Hochtief CEO had resigned
shortly beforehand.
The Spanish company is hoping that Hochtief’s strong balance
sheet and order book will help it weather the severe conditions
it currently faces back home, and work through the €8bn it currently carries in debt. The political battle to take over Germany’s
biggest construction group has dragged on since September
2010, when ACS made its opening move. ACS had grabbed 30
percent of the company by February, with Hochtief proving
unable to repulse the Spanish aggression. Ironically, it’s Spain’s
construction sector that’s facing a 15 percent drop in 2011, while
Germany’s is expected to grow by 1.7 percent.
their current premises or optimizing their existing network.
Expansion still hasn’t become their biggest priority, so it’s not
surprising that there’s no immediate end in sight on the supply
side. Developers see little incentive to push for speculative new
schemes, so it’s only a matter of time before such forces squeeze
higher rental levels from the existing industrial stock.
Vincent Lottefier, Head of JLL’s Corporate Solutions EMEA team,
says that new completions and future supply have reached historic lows in EMEA, leading to limited choice. In Western Europe
completions over the next 12 months will be below the five year
average, with the majority pre-let or built-to-suit. “This shortage
of modern supply will lead to tougher market conditions for industrial occupiers next year, as incentives are expected to move
in and, whilst prime rents are still below their peak levels, tenants will be faced by escalating rents in most European markets
by the end of this year due to limited supply levels and strong
competition for space,” comments Lottefier. Rising inflation and
austerity measures could knock down the economic growth,
consumer spending and corporate confidence, the main drivers
underpinning occupier demand, warns JLL.
Meinl and Atrium reach truce
A bitter dispute between Atrium European Real Estate and Julius Meinl V and the Meinl Bank was settled
by an agreement under which the two dropped their
charges against each other. Atrium is the re-named Meinl Property Group, whose shareholders claimed had been swindled out of
billions of Euros by Meinl and his bank. It had been suing the coffee bean heir for €2.1bn. Meinl spent a couple days in jail back in
the spring of 2009 and was forced to post €100m in bail. Under the
agreement, the companies will no longer have any business dealings or ties and both have dropped all claims against the other.
JLL: Industrial rents headed higher
Recent research from Jones Lang LaSalle indicates
that despite increasing confidence from industrial
occupiers, they’re still in the phase of upgrading
WestLB restructuring agreed
A break in the impasse over the break-up of
WestLB appeared to have been reached at the end
of June, which had been given as a deadline by the
EU. The bank’s owners reported agreeing to a restructuring in
which the bank would be pared down to an institution with a
balance sheet of no more thatn €45bn which would cater to regional savings banks. It would shed 90 percent of its work force
and would have a year to sell its corporate lending and project
finance units. The plan is subject to approval by the EU’s competition commission.
Financial
REGIONAL
11
Europa Capital sells, gains new partners
Europa Capital LLP sold the second and final phase of Office
Campus Gasometer in Vienna’s Simmering district to Bank Austria Real Invest on behalf of the Europa Fund for roughly €75m.
The scheme’s first phase was completed and sold in 2004 on the
back of a long-term lease to StatistikAustria.
The scheme’s second phase is a 28,000 sqm building with floor
spans of 15 and 18 meters. Tenants of the building include Nokia
Siemens Networks, Fujitsu, LG Electronics, Winere Wohnen and
Hitachi. Its development manager was RED Real Estate Development.
Just months after its tie-up with Rockefeller Group and Mistubishi Estate, Europa Capital has carried through on one of the
components of that deal by allowing eight of its top management team to become equity partners. Erik Ruane, Nic Fox, Rob
Sim, Belinda Chain, Richard Collins, Kevin D’Arcy, Simon Hooper
and Jason Oram have joined the founding partners along with
The Rockefeller Group as owners in the business.
Charles Graham (one of the founding partners) says the move
was always going to be necessary at some point, but the deal
with The Rockefeller Group provided a specific method for accomplishing it.
“We wanted to spread the ownership more widely,” says Graham “and as part of the deal with Rockefeller/Mitsubishi, we organized that we would make available some of the remaining
ownership that we retained to the next tier, and The Rockefeller Group contribution to that part of the agenda was that they
would make financing available.”
Merger deepens Prologis pockets
The merger between the world’s two biggest players in industrial real estate development took place at the sort of speed few
buildings these days are sold. Philip Dunne (CEO for Europe) says
that discussions first got underway in November 2010, and that
by January, the deal had been agreed.
The basic rationale behind the deal was the way the two companies complemented each other. AMB began life as a fund and
investment manager, while the old Prologis added such capabilities to its development focus only in more recent years.
They also had a slightly different approach to the business of developing and investing in industrial real estate, with AMB more
strict in its search for ports and airport properties, while Prologis
looked for a wider variety of assets.
“Prologis was perhaps more of an all things to all people type enterprise,” says Dunne. “That was partly what got us into a little bit
of trouble in the downturn and so we got very focused in considering strategically where we would invest on a go forward basis.”
Geographically, the companies make a good fit as well. Both
companies are global, but Prologis, while it was forced by the
crisis to abandon its plans to expand throughout Asia and Brazil,
has a strong foothold in Europe. AMB, however, has a foothold
in China and Brazil, countries that are crucial to growth for any
company with global ambitions.
CEE director Ben Bannatyne says the new Prologis will continue
its cautious approach for the time being in Central Europe. So,
rather than buying new land, it will keep filling in industrial parks
that still have room for construction on the basis of specific requirements.
As important as the potential for future growth is, though, is
how the companies deal with old liabilities. “Prologis balance
sheet took a battering over the last couple years,” admits Dunne.
“AMB’s did as well but to a lesser extent partly because they were
less exposed and less leveraged going into the downturn. When
you put the two companies together we have a stronger balance
sheet and a greater ability to continue to deleverage the merged
company. That makes us more attractive and more certain prospect from an investment perspective. It also over time reduces
our cost of debt so we become a lot more efficient.”
Philip Dunne (Prologis)
12
REGIONAL
Residential
Consolidation
coming for CEE
residential sector
Midway through 2011, each of the national
markets in CEE is highly differentiated,
but one common feature is that they are
almost certainly all on the cusp of a period
of consolidation.
Change is a gradual process in the more
resilient Polish market, unlike in Romania
which has witnessed some spectacular
failures by development companies.
Also there are some strong developers
which are realizing large-scale residential
schemes and a few new major players
entering the market. Notwithstanding
the pace or manner of change, it seems
Maximilian Mendel
Dwelling completions have been falling since 2008 across CEE
Dwelling completions
The commercial residential market in
Central and Eastern Europe is highly
fragmented. In fact there are thousands
of residential developers active in CEE.
(Just for the sake of the Top 50 ranking,
REAS analyzed data of more than 2,500
companies.) This is in stark contrast to the
number of major warehouse developers
active on a regional level, while the
number of retail developers is equally
manageable.
The largest residential developers
within CEE, Dom Development and J.W.
Construction (both from Poland) and
the Czech-based Central Group were
able to produce around 1,000 dwellings
per annum during 2000-2010. And yet,
their market shares range from 1 - 3
percent of the total residential output in
their respective countries. Any attempts
to consolidate the market disintegrated
during CEE’s boom period, when just
about everyone with any money turned
into residential developers.
Even giants have fallen in
this crisis as a long-overdue
cleansing takes place
certain that the CEE markets will undergo
a dynamic transformation. The list of top
market players is likely to undergo several
changes over the next few years and
the same ranking could soon look quite
different.
Compared to other countries in the
region, Poland’s residential market
is demonstrating the most robust
performance. In spite of a more
conservative lending approach, banks
have continued issuing mortgage loans
through the crisis, and we observed
relatively steady interest from home
buyers in the primary market offering. In
fact, excessive optimism on the part of
developers is arguably the greatest threat
to market stability in Poland. Regardless of
an already large offering (40,000 dwelling
are available in the six largest cities alone),
residential developers launched a huge
number of new projects to the market in
the first half of 2011. With competition
on the rise, a further correction in pricing
cannot be ruled out.
In the Czech Republic only the largest and
financially strongest market players are
able to continue with new construction
activity. In fact, they’ve been busy putting
highly competitive products on the market
in recent months. In contrast, there are
many developers struggling to sell their
Residential
The current situation in Romania is
still characterized by weak economic
performance which impacts on households’
purchasing power and on the confidence
level of potential home buyers. In addition,
the credibility of the developer’s market
has weakened significantly through
an unfortunate series of insolvencies,
bankruptcies and frozen projects. There‘s no
lack of projects that have been announced,
but haven‘t gotten underway yet. Many
more have begun but have not yet been
completed. This makes it difficult to quantify
the current offering or to present a realistic
pipeline of new projects. Irrespective of the
enormous potential Romania’s market has,
it’s difficult to see an increase in the number
of transactions, to say nothing of prices, any
time soon.
13
Index of pre- and post-crisis development of residential prices. 100 = Q4 2006
Price index: 100 = Q4 2006
existing product. They won’t be helped by
a planned rise in the VAT rate applicable
for housing (from 10 percent to 14 percent
in 2012 and to 17.5 percent in 2013)
which is expected to impact heavily on
the development of the Czech residential
market.
Slovakia’s commercial housing market was
somewhat undeveloped on the eve of EUaccession and developers largely targeted
foreign investors during the boom period
instead of local home buyers. As a result,
homes currently on offer were not adjusted
properly to local demand. They have little
hope of selling their current stock without
resorting to a drastic price adjustment.
However, since the Slovak market is small
and dominated by a few large players,
there are not many developers yet willing
to change their pricing greatly. Thus, the
market remains in pause mode. Perhaps
a drop in land prices might be able to
stimulate the market.
REGIONAL
In Hungary the large share of ready, yet
unsold stock in the primary market offer
remains problematic for developers. In
Budapest approximately two-thirds of all
apartments available for sale on the market
are located in completed developments.
There is still a surplus of supply over
demand on the residential market, in
spite of the fact that developers radically
reduced new supply. Also, the weakness
of the economy and particularly of the
Hungarian banking sector is hindering a
quicker recovery of the housing market.
Few developers can introduce new projects
to the market, primarily due to financial
restrictions. However, a properly-adjusted
market offer could be highly competitive
over the existing offer.
The predicted consolidation of the
developer’s market is taking place across
CEE and it will be a long-lasting process
worth monitoring. In fact, the rankings
which follow reveal that the first changes
have already taken place, visible in the
absence of some former major players such
as the Spanish developer Martinsa-Fadesa
or the Warsaw-based Edbud which went
bankrupt. In cooperation with CIJ Journal,
we would be delighted to present future
updates on the regional top residential
developers.
Maximilian Mendel is Associate Director,
CEE Research & Advisory at REAS | Residential
Advisors
14
Regional
Top 50 Residential
Residential
Developers
in CEE: 2000 - 2010
Dom Development S.A.
2
Jarosław Szanajca, CEO
Poland
J.W.
Construction
Holding S.A.
Total Units Completed: 12,870
Total Projects Completed: 69
Active since since 1996, Dom Development is a leader on the residential market, specializing on both high-end and
mass market projects. In all, by the end
of 2010 Dom Development had delivered 15,000 flats in Warsaw and Wrocław.
It expects to complete another 1,100 this
year. Many of its projects are recognized
as among the most exclusive investment
in the country.
Tomasz
Panabażys
CEO
Poland
The developer began on the Polish prop-
erty market with residential projects in
Warsaw. Now a leading company in its
core market, J.W. Construction has begun
increasing the scope of its investments
beyond the nation’s capital. It also acts
as a general contractor. In total, the company has built, or has in planning 23,000
flats and 350 detached houses.
regional
Top 50 Residential
3
15
4
Central
Group
Budimex
Dušan Kunovský
Chairman of
the Board
Henryk Urbański
Chairman of the
Board and CEO
Nieruchomości
Czech Republic
Poland
Central Group entered the Czech market in
1997 by catering to consumers interested in
discount level family homes. A decade and
113 projects later, the company had shifted
to more mid-market price tags. The company
has stayed clear of credit (by tapping its own
equity and customer installment payments).
It brought in Swiss investor GPC in 2009.
This subsidiary of Poland’s largest contractor
(Budimex) began in Warsaw before expanding to other major cities to provide large-scale
housing. Budimex has delivered over 5,000
flats and now one of the country’s strongest
players with base capital of PLN 65.3m. It was
awarded third-prize for the strongest brand
on Warsaw’s housing market.
REAS – Residential Advisors has
worked together with CIJ to produce the TOP 50 Residential listing
this month, providing data and copreparing the ranking for it.
5
6
FINEP Holding
Krzysztof Kasprzyk, CEO
Multi Hekk
Tomáš Pardubický
CEO
Poland
Czech Republic
While this Czech developer has become increasingly active in commercial projects, it
established itself as a leader in the residential
sector, completing 16 projects and nearly
6,000 units since 1995. The company expanded to Slovakia in 2006 with its project Jégého
alej in Bratislava, and debuted on the highend market with Císařka villas in Prague 5.
Established
in
1990,
Multi-Hekk
Nieruchomości provides construction services and materials, but its core activity are real
estate investments and the manufacturing of
ceramic and carpentry materials. It specializes
on reducing development costs and has delivered 6,000 flats to the broader market.
16
Regional
Top 50 Residential
7
8
Ataner
Ryszard Szulc
CEO
9
Skanska
Reality
Grupa Inwestycyjna
Hossa S.A
Bjorn Mattsson,
Managing
Director
Mariusz Gawron
CEO
Poland
Poland
Czech Republic
Ataner has been delivering both residential
and commercial projects in Poland for the
last 20 years, but its core market is the city of
Poznań. In all, Ataner has completed, 7,500
flats, along with commercial space. It’s usually
the investor, developer and general contractor for its projects, including work on Polanka
2, the largest residential project in the region.
Skanska has been a major force in the Czech
market since 2000. Along with vast construction activities, the company has developed
4,470 units in 47 projects. It develops a wide
variety of homes ranging from starting flats
to mid-market apartments. It’s begun work
on its first project in Liberec and is looking at
other regional cities as well.
11
Grupa Inwestycyjna Hossa has developer dozens of apartment schemes with
over 4,000 flats, along with half a million
square meters of retail and office buildings. It’s now one of the most recognized
brands in northeast Poland, providing
complete development services, including planning and operations. As an active
member of the Polish Developers Assoc.,
it promotes legislation and regulations
supporting the residential industry.
10
Qualia
Development
P.I.B. EBEJOT
Leszek Piotr
Nałęcz
CEO
Andrzej Jaczewski and Regina Katner
ViceChairman of the Board
and Board of Directors
Poland
Poland
Przesiębiorstwo Inwestycyjno Budowlane
Ebejot’s built its first apartment complex in
Mokotów in 1999. Since then, it’s increased
its portfolio to 29 buildings with a land bank
of 20 ha. Now an established brand in Poland,
the company has won various awards, including Building of the Year in 2005.
A subsidiary of PKO Bank Polski Capital
Group, Qualia Development develops largescale projects featuring coherent architectural concepts that fit into the image of the cities
and districts they’re located in. The latest flagship investment of Qualia is a series of seven
high-end buildings in the Flotylla district to
be delivered in Miedzyzdroje.
regional
Top 50 Residential
15
Top 10 Residential
Developers in Poland
Invest
Komfort S.A.
Mieczysław Ciomek, CEO
Poland
Operating on Polish real estate market
since 1995, Invest Komfort is a subsidiary
Baltis, a company formed by SGI Baltis
oraz Porta Drzwi. Invest Komfort is active
in Gdynia, Gdańsk and Sopot, producing
purely high-end projects in exclusive locations. In 16 years of business, it’s delivered 27 projects.
12
17
13
1. Dom Development 12,870
2. J.W. Construction
Holding
12,128
3. Budimex Nieruchom.
5,922
4. Multi Hekk
4,428
5. Ataner 4,383
6. Grupa Inwestycyjna
Hossa
3,840
7. Qualia Development 3,357
8. P.I.B. EBEJOT 3,037
9. PBO Dach Bud 3,035
10. Polnord
2,951
Total Number of Units are based on
residential units completed
between 2000 – 2010
14
PBO Dach Bud
Polnord S.A.
Allcon
Jan Chorostkowski
CEO
Bartosz Puzdrowski
CEO
Mariusz Białek
CEO
Budownictwo
Poland
Poland
Begun as a small construction company
in 1986 PBO Dach Bud did primarily minor construction and renovation work,
before expanding its activities to include
development. Today, it’s become one of
the largest development companies in
Lower Silesia. Its first residential project
was a housing complex in Sąsiedzka in
1996. In all, the company’s delivered
225,000 sqm of residential space.
Poland
Set up before 1989, Polnord was active primarily in the development of residential
projects in the Tricity area. But it’s also actove
om Łódź, Wrocław and Poznań, along with
second-tier cities like Olsztyn or Szczecin.
Recently completed residential schemes
include Osiedle Jabłonowa, Kamienica pod
Wrzosem and Baltic Center.
Allcon Group specializes in build-to-suit
projects, along with delivering its own
developments. But it has a wide spectrum of additional activities, including
developing and running hotels, office
and retail properties. Its core markets are
Gdynia, Gdańsk and Sopot. Formed 16
years ago, the company has delivered 20
residential projects from the high-end to
the mass markets.
18
Regional
Top 50 Residential
16
17
BRE.
Locum S.A.
Krzysztof
Suskiewicz
CEO
Autóker Holding
Eliav Maimon
CEO
Hungary
Poland
Autóker Holding is one of the powerful players on Hungary’s real estate market, with
particular activities on the residential and industrial markets. It produced its first residential project in 2002, the 316 unit Cézár Ház
project. More recently, Autóker completed
Marina Part Premium, with nearly 300 apartments along with commercial space.
Established in 2000, BRE. locum a subsidiary
of BRE Bank. Now a listed development company, the company operates on five local
markets where it’s carried out 15 residential
projects with 2,700 units of 185,000 sqm of
living space. BRE. locum also provides residential housing property management services.
18
19
20
Inpro S.A.
Prelios
Eco Classic
Piotr Stefaniak
CEO
Małgorzat Kosińska
CEO
Wojciech Fabiński
CEO
Poland
Poland
This company made its debut this year on the
Warsaw Stock Exchange, a daring move at a
time when investors were suspicious about the
development sector. It was established in 1987,
and offers apartments and houses. Inpro has 25
projects to date, plus a number of general contracting and renovation deals in Gdańsk and
and the entire Tri-city market.
Prelios is a relatively new name to the
market, having traded under the Pirelli
Real Estate moniker in the past. The company carried out over 2,500 residential
units in Poland between 2000-2010. The
company’s other two markets are Italy
and Germany, but it’s currently in the
process of divesting itself of developments in order to focus on asset and fund
management.
Poland
Eco Classic was established in1983 as Grupa
Eco. Originally a project manager and general
contractor, it has since evolved into a developer focusing on upper-end residential products. It’s carried out more than 100 projects
and expanded from Warsaw to the Tri-city
market, as well as schemes in Germany and
Israel.
regional
Top 50 Residential
21
Vinohrady, or Belarie Park in Modřany.
Sekyra Group expanded to Slovakia in
2006.
Sekyra
Group
Luděk Sekyra
Chairman of
the Board
22
Acciona Nieruchomości
Carlos de Leon
Member of the Board
Czech Republic
Poland
Established in 1994 by Luděk Sekyra,
Sekyra Group was focusing on lower end
residential long before it began working
on BTS office schemes like the headquarters for T-Mobile, Nestle and Skanska.
Its residential schemes moved gradually up-market, with schemes in popular
areas like Residence Korunní in Prague-
Acciona Nieruchomości in Poland dates back
to 2005, when the Polish company Mostostal
Invest was bought by the Spanish developer Acciona Inmobiliaria. It’s been active in
Warsaw locations like Gocław or the upscale
Mokotów. Its scheme Apartamenty Pańska
did much to bring life to the otherwise neglected Pańska street in downtown Warsaw.
Top 10 Residential
Developers in Hungary
1. Autóker Holding
2,661
2. Nanette 2,094
3. Cordia 1,191
4. Real Hungary
921
5. GTC 889
6. SL Group Management 848
7. Engel East Europe 817
8. Biggeorges
776
9. SCD Group 659
10. TriGranit Fejlesztési 300
between 2000 – 2010
24
23
Dolcan
Bogdan Górski
CEO
Sławomir Doliński
Chairman of the Supervisory Board
19
Przedsiębiorstwo
Budowlane “Górski”
Poland
Poland
A Warsaw specialist in development, Dolcan
has 20 projects delivered to date since early
1990s. The company’s currently working on
eight new projects, while 11 more are in the
pipeline. Dolcan is also involved in other construction activities, along with the wholesaling of construction and fit-out materials.
Established in 1981, PB Górski is based
out of Tri-city. Initially focused on the
construction of single-family houses PB
Górski turned towards large-scale development in 1997 when it began taking on the entire development process.
The company boasts 100 percent Polish
ownership and is led by its founders and
chairpersons Bogdan Górski and Iwona
Górska.
20
Regional
Top 50 Residential
25
26
GANT
DEVELOPMENT S.A.
Nanette
Karol Antkowiak
CEO
Tamir Kishon
Regional Director
Poland
Hungary
Nanette Real Estate Group is a dominant
player on the Central-European real estate
market and has been present in Hungary
since 2000. The Group has significant portfolios in Poland, Romania, Croatia and the
Ukraine. Its projects in Hungary include Mandarin Garden, Nanette City Home, Karolina
Court and Gizella House.
Another Warsaw-listed residential developer, Gant is active Gdańsk, Kraków, Opole,
Poznań, and Wrocław offering both high-end
and low-end products. In order to maintain
activity during the downturn, the company
has taken what it calls a “flexible” approach
to pricing, preferring turnover to margin. It
recently bought 13,000 sqm of land in the
Wola district of Warsaw for a project it hopes
to begin during 2011.
27
28
29
Sam 81 MPSBM
AGRO - MAN
Daniel Kular, CEO
Adam Tadeusz Beras, CEO
Przedsiębiorstwo
Budowlane Margo
Poland
Poland
Mariusz Czapiewski
CEO
Established in 1981 Sam 81 MPSBM specialized from the very beginning in conducting independent investments and
providing complete development services. It produces apartments and family homes in the greater-Warsaw area. In
its relatively long history, it’s produced
nearly 3,600 dwellings in virtually every
price level of the market.
One the founding members of the Polish Developers Association, Agro-Man is
a Warsaw-based company operating on
the Warsaw property market since 1997
It specializes in developing small and
mid-sized residential schemes located
for the most part around Białołęka and
Pruszków.
Poland
Active in the Pomorskie region of Poland
for 20 years, Gdynia-based Przedsiebiorstwo Budowalne Margo is a specialist
on housing estates and family homes in
TriCity, its core market. PBM is also active
in health resort investments. Its most exclusive project delivered is the hotel and
apartment complex Continental in Krynica .Morska.
regional
Top 50 Residential
30
Echo Investment S.A.
Piotr Gromniak
CEO
Poland
Echo Investment, one of the largest Polish
developers, is active in four key sectors of the
real estate market: housing, retail and shopping/entertainment centers, office buildings
and hotels. The company has been active
since 1996, completing, 80 projects in 28 Polish cities, with a total area of around 700,000
sqm.
21
Top 10 Residential
Developers in Czech Republic
1. Central Group
6,091
2. Finep Holding 4,517
3. Skanska Reality
4,325
4. Sekyra Group
2,303
5. Ekospol 1,520
6. Crestyl
1,324
7. Geosan Development 1,053
8. Wadia 972
9. Orco Property Group
949
10. Daramis management 852
between 2000 – 2010
31
32
33
Spółka
Mieszkaniowa Salwator
Ekolan S.A.
AFI Europe Poland
Andrzej Biernacki
CEO
Avi Barzilay
CEO
Poland
Poland
Ekolan began in 1997 under the leadership of Andrzej Biernacki providing its
local markets in both apartments building and detached houses districts located mostly at the sea side of TriCity. The
company’s best-known project, Horyzont
estate, was built between 2004 – 2006,
providing a total of 387 units. Its Osiedle
Pogodne project in Gdańsk offered 1,000
units by 2008.
AFI Europe is a real estate investment and
development company operating in Central Eastern Europe and South Eastern Europe, with a focus on the development of
large scale commercial and residential real
estate projects. It has an established track
record for developing and managing real
estate schemes. The company began operations in 1997 as a division of the Africa
Israel Group.
Zygmunt Sułowski
CEO
Poland
The developer Mieszkaniowa Salwator was
founded in 1998 in Krakow. It provides the
local market with large-scale apartment
projects, along with smaller multi-family
and single-family homes. Mieszkaniowa
Salwator is part of the Salwator Capital
Group which is also active in the hotel and
leisure sectors across Poland.
22
Regional
Top 50 Residential
34
35
36
Budnex
Ronson
Development Management
Arbet
Krzysztof Nuckowski
CEO
Shraga Weisman
CEO
Poland
Operating since 1996, Budnex is a familyowned company that became a regional
leader. While it provides its core markets with
all types of projects, Budnex focuses on residential schemes, especially detached housing developments. Along with 6,000 flats,
Budnex has produced schools, banks and
20,000 sqm of retail.
Andrzej Bogusz
CEO
Poland
Poland
Total Units Completed:1,859
Ronson Development Management, whose
shareholders include GE Real Estate, ITR
Dori and ING OFE, was established in 2000.
The company concentrates on the Warsaw
market but has expanded to other cities.
The company, which is listed on the Warsaw
stock exchange, issued PLN 87.5m in bonds
in March that are due in 2014.
37
ROBYG S.A.
Wojciech Okoński
CEO
Operating in the Warmia and Mazury region,
the developer has established itself there in
the past few years as an unchallenged leader.
The company is formed by five subsidiaries,
of which each are active in different sectors of
the market. Arbet concentrates on mediumsized projects.
38
Pax SM
Andrzej Ślązak
CEO
Poland
Poland
Specializing in residential projects, Robyg has
been producing apartment buildings, estates
and detached houses districts since 2000. Robyg places heavy emphasis on environmentally sustainable technology, including solar
panels and energy-efficient light fixtures. It’s
recently expanded into the office and retail
sectors.
The history of Pax SM housing cooperative
dates back to 1957 and is closely connected
with the the publisher of “Slowo Powszechne”. Its first buildings were delivered in the
1960s, 20 years after the cooperative started
carrying out new projects. The company carries out the development, purchasing, sale
and leasing of its own properties and for third
parties.
regional
Top 50 Residential
40
ARCHICOM Grupa
Dorota Jarodzka-Środka
CEO
Poland
Founded in 1986 as an architectural studio,
Archicom Group’s rapid expansion is based
on its original designs for commercial buildings. With over 130 schemes to its credit, the
company issued bonds in June 2011 on the
Catalyst market. As a developer, it’s produced
1,700 units on what it describes as the upper
end of the market. Its home market is the city
of Wrocław.
23
Top Residential
Developers in Romania
1. Conarg Real Estate
2. Impact
3. Adama Romania
4.GTC Romania 5. ARED
6. Tiriac Imobiliare
7. Asmita Group 8. RCC Grup
9. Domus Stil
1,573
1,475
1,469
1,232
1,200
899
788
769
744
completed residential units completed between 2000 - 2010
39
41
42
Marvipol S.A.
Włodarzewska IV SM
Wawel Service
Andrzej Nizio
CEO
Jerzy Szymański
CEO
Bartłomiej Rzepa, CEO
Poland
Poland
Marvipol started out as provider of earlystage development services, in particular
land acquisition. By 2000, the company
was involved in the entire development
process and achieved a listing on the
Warsaw Stock Exchange in 2008. Its residential scheme include and Villa Avanti,
Apartamenty Mokotów Park or Melody
Park. The next phase of its scheme Zielona Italia are scheduled for completion in
the summer of 2012.
Established in 2001, Włodarzewska IV SM
company produces residential, office and
retail projects, focusing solely on Warsaw
and its environs. Włodarzewska has carried
out 18 schemes with over 2,700 flats in various points of Warsaw and Mazowieckie. The
company intends to deliver 100,000 sqm of
residential space over the next two years.
Poland
Wawel Service is in fact a capital group of 25
companies, with the title company managing the group. Operating since 1992 and a
full-fledged development company since
1998, Wawel Service has established itself
as one of the leaders of the Kraków market.
Kraków was one of the local markets that
grew the most during the boom years, alongside Warsaw or Wrocław. It might not have
the pace anymore, but still is considered one
of the most promising and challenging markets around.
24
Regional
Top 50 Residential
43
44
Conarg
Real Estate
46
Ekospol
Adama
Romania
Evžen Korec
CEO and Chairman of the Board
Valentin Visoiu
President
David Flusberg
Co Founder
and President
Romania
Czech Republic
Romania
Conarg began at the beginning of economic
reform in Romania in 1991 as a general contractor and management group. Conarg’s
first project in Bucharest, Quadra Place, was
a complex of 343 flats which attracted an
investment of €32m. As a contractor, Conarg
has also been involved in projects like Link
Mall Baneasa.
Over its 19 years on the Czech market, Ekospol
has completed over 35 projects and 8,000
flats, family homes and construction plots. It
concentrated on the lower-end of the market
from the beginning with lowest cost guarantees. Recently Ekospol finalized Viladomy u
Vinořského zámku, with two other projects
scheduled for completion this year: Viladomy
Uhříněves and Nový Park Písnice.
Adama was founded in Bucharest in 2004 by
David Flusberg, Dvir Cohen Hoshen and Isaac
Cohen Hoshen. Since then, the company
expanded to Moldova, Ukraine and Turkey.
In Romania, the company has completed
projects in Timisoara, Arad, Oradea, Cluj, Brasov and Ploiesti. In June, Adama Holding was
purchased by Immofinanz, which had held a
stake in the company since 2007.
45
48
Cresco Group
Impact
Štefan Beleš
CEO
Dan Ioan Popp
CEO
Slovakia
Romania
Total Projects Completed: N/A
Impact was founded in 1991, and achieved
a listing on the Bucharest Stock Exchange
1996 on the its Tier I, the first time this was
achieved a property company. Along with 16
residential projects, Impact has an 8,000 sqm
office building and has been active in Constanta, Oradea and Ploiesti.
From the time it was established in 1992,
Cresco Group’s focus was on residential,
though it’s been active in the commercial
sector as well. Cresco has developed seven
residential projects, offering a total of 1,262
apartments. Three other projects are currently in planning: Slnecnice Južné Mesto, Park
Villa Havlíckova, and Park Residence Majakovského. Of its completed schemes, III Towers
is the most prominent.
Top 50 Residential
47
CRESTYL
Omar Koleitat
CEO
Czech Republic
Crestyl entered the Czech market since 1996,
and gradually built up a portfolio of residential and commercial projects so that it now
includes 1.8m sqm of leasable space and
two hotel projects. It’s is now working on Liben Docks along the Vltava river in Prague
8. Shareholders include GE Real Estate, Highridge Limited, GEM and Cheyne Capital.
49
regional
25
Top 10 Residential
Developers in Slovakia
1. Cresco Group
1,262
2. OTYK1,137
3. J&T Real Estate
865
4. Atlas Real 816
5. BZ Group 716
6. Avestus
633
7. FINEP 599
8. Avocat 333
9. Vienna Gate Group
308
10. Mono 286
between 2000 – 2010
50
GTC
Romania
ARED
Shimon Galon,
CEO of Romania
Romania
Romania
GTC Romania is a subsidiary of Globe Trade
Centre SA, a group that’s been active since
1994. Currently it operates all over Central
and Eastern Europe. In Romania, the company’s residential projects include Rose Garden
(the Colentina Residential Complex ) and Felicity. It’s also a prolific developer of retail and
office projects.
Total Projects Completed: N/A
REAS
Maximilian Mendel
Associate Director,
CEE Research
& Advisory,
maximilian.mendel@reas.pl
R E A S | Residential Advisors
www.reas.pl
REAS has specialized on residential market research, development consultancy and
capital market services since 1997, cooperating with developers, banks, investors and
other players active on the market. Having an own database that features vast information on primary market projects allows REAS to provide advisory services, valuations and long-term forecasts regarding various residential markets within CEE. In
2007, REAS became a partner with Jones Lang LaSalle.
Regional
26
Top 50 Residential
CEE’s Top 50 Residential Developers of the Decade
The countries included in the list are the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Romania.
The total number of units are comprised from all projects completed by the developer, by country from the years 2000 - 2010
Name of Developer
Country
Total number of Units
Name of Developer
Country
1
Dom Development S.A.
Poland
12,870
2
J.W. Construction Holding S.A.
Poland
3
Central Group
4
Budimex Nieruchomości
5
6
26
GANT DEVELOPMENT S.A.
Poland
2,049
12,128
27
Sam 81 MPSBM
Poland
2,042
Czech Republic
6,091
28
AGRO - MAN
Poland
2,033
Poland
5,922
29
Poland
2,027
FINEP Holding
Czech Republic
4,517
Przedsiębiorstwo
Budowlane Margo
Multi Hekk
Poland
4,428
30
Echo Investment S.A.
Poland
1,987
31
Spółka
Mieszkaniowa Salwator
Poland
1,957
32
Ekolan S.A.
Poland
1,946
33
AFI Europe Poland
Poland
1,910
34
Budnex
Poland
1,887
35
Ronson Development
Management
Poland
1,859
36
Arbet
Poland
1,853
37
Robyg S.A.
Poland
1,832
38
Pax SM
Poland
1,818
39
Marvipol S.A.
Poland
1,769
40
ARCHICOM
Grupa
Poland
1,762
41
Włodarzewska IV SM
Poland
1,730
7
Ataner
Poland
4,383
8
Skanska Reality
Czech Republic
4,325
9
Grupa
Inwestycyjna Hossa S.A.
Poland
3,840
Qualia Development (former
PKO BP Inwestycje)
Poland
11
P.I.B. EBEJOT
Poland
3,037
12
PBO Dach Bud
Poland
3,035
13
Polnord S.A.
Poland
2,951
14
Allcon Budownictwo
Poland
2,832
15
Invest Komfort S.A.
Poland
2,797
10
3,357
16
BRE. Locum S.A.
Poland
2,794
17
Autóker Holding
Hungary
2,661
18
Inpro S.A.
Poland
2,640
19
Prelios (former: Pirelli
Pekao Real Estate)
Poland
2,636
20
Eco Classic
Poland
2,545
21
Sekyra Group
Czech Republic
2,303
22
Acciona Nieruchomości
Poland
23
Dolcan
Poland
Total number of Units
42
Wawel Service
Poland
1,637
43
Conarg Real Estate
Romania
1,573
44
Ekospol
Czech Republic
1,520
45
Impact
Romania
1,475
2,172
46
Adama Romania
Romania
1,469
2,155
47
CRESTYL
Czech Republic
1,324
48
Cresco Group
Slovakia
1,262
49
GTC Romania
Romania
1,232
50
ARED
Romania
1,200
24
Przedsiębiorstwo
Budowlane "Górski"
Poland
2,108
25
Nanette
Hungary
2,094
The information in this listing is accurate to the best of our knowledge according to the data we have assembled,
however it is indicative only and not intended to be used as a definitive listing. In the interest of accuracy and completeness,
we would encourage any comments or corrections to thelist.
Real Estate
Agencies
in CEE: 2000 - 2010
Retail
End-users
Women in
Real Estate
in CEE: 2000 - 2010
Entrepreneurs
in Real Estate
Tenants
in CEE: 2000 - 2010
For more information please contact:
Robert Fletcher | CEO | +48 506 074 042 | fletcher@cijjournal.com
28
Czech Republic
Development
Same old stories in
Prague 7 tender
Good luck trying to find
something new among the
bidders in Prague 7’s tender for
its new headquarters
Nina Fibigerová
In the latest round of a tender for Prague 7’s
new headquarters, district authorities have
pared down the list of offers from five to just
three. They’re due to pick a winner by the
end of the year, though this last round had
the feel of a clearance sale, with old projects
on offer that developers have been unable
to sell to anyone else.
Prague 7 actually rejected Neocity’s bid
in last year’s aborted tender for a new
headquarters, as it offered a building
(Parkhotel) that it doesn’t even own. The only
brand-new project in the mix, Lordship’s
Galerie Stromovka, never had a chance
because it’s simply not big enough.
“Galerie Stromovka failed to offer enough
office space,” says city spokesman Martin
Vokuš. “And with Parkhotel we would have to
tear the building down and build a new one,
which would be a rather prolonged process.”
This leaves PPF offering Argentinská hvězda to
compete with Orco, which seeks is trying offload
Bubenská 1, and with the B class Mercury Tower
building, sold by Orco’s Endurance fund for €1
to Volksbank (against a pledge on the building
worth €11.6m).
PPF’s scheme Argentinská hvězda
Mercury Tower, built on Argentinská Street
offers 13,000 sqm of office space. Orco’s
Bubenská 1 is a landmark building with
strong transport access thanks to the
Vltavská metro station.
But even a year ago, Mayor Marek Ječmének
explained that while the asking price is
CZK 650m (€26.9m), the reconstruction
of the protected historical monument
would cost Prague 7 nearly CZK 1bn. Too
much, in other words, though Vokuš says
the final price is still in negotiations. Orco
spokeswoman Petra Zdeňková says the cost
of reconstruction was included in the Orco‘s
offer.
Prague 7 isn’t having an easy time of it choosing its new headquarters and ruled out Lordship’s bid
because it lacked the necessary office space
PPF’s Argentinská hvězda was presented last
year as the only option for the municipality,
until PPF stepped aside, explaining it would
wait until after local elections last autumn.
The project consists of two buildings, of
which the municipality would use one. The
project’s been in planning for over a decade.
With five years still to go on its current lease,
Prague 7 would appear to have time on its
side, but it’s demanding the new space be
ready by 2013. This may be in order to build
some leeway into its move schedule, or it
could be an attempt to take advantage of
the current landlord’s market and cheap
construction prices.
The financial consultancy Cautor Consulting
is advising the district, though its real estate
expertise isn’t immediately apparent.
Transcripts of Prague 7 council meetings
quote Mayor Ječmenek as saying the group
was making its decisions primarily by feel. No
property consultants will be hired, and the
final decision will come down to price, says
spokesman Vokuš.
September 21st - 22nd 2011
Prague, Czech Republic
This year’s CEDEM CEE 2011 will bring together leading investors, developers, bankers and consultancies for a series of
panels and debates in order to look for signs of improvement and to identify which opportunities and risks the crisis
is creating.
Zuzana Vodrážková | Sales Director CZ & SK | +420 603 264 921 | vodrazkova@cijjournal.com
General Partner
Partners
Associate Partners
www.cedem.cz
Gala Party Partner
Organizer
30
Czech Republic
Urban Planning
Massive brownfield
to transform
Prague‘s center
Central Prague’s biggest development
project kicked off with a bit of fantasy
at the end of May. In a move that was
half marketing and half architectural
brainstorming, the investor behind the
Masaryk Train Station re-development
asked seven prominent design studios to
let their imaginations run wild and come
up with potential master plans for a 4.5 ha
site with hundreds of thousands of new real
estate that could easily more than a decade
to fill.
A tender held years ago was won by the
Masaryk Station Investment consortium,
made up of Sudop, Czech Railways, its
development arm, Morávka Centrum and
ING Real Estate. ING dropped out of the
consortium, however, in 2010, and with
local elections coming up, the consortium
decided to wait for the new leadership to
be established.
The architectural workshop resulted in
suggestions that ranged from the boringly
suburban to the realms of science fiction.
The studios were instructed not to worry
about feasibility, but rather to dream up
potential uses for the land.
Designs of A+R System, ADNS Architects,
Jean Nouvel and Atelier 8000 Jiří Střítecký
Real-Treuhand
Reality
Real-Treuhand plans to
start work over the summer on a mixed-use scheme called .142.
The project has been been held up
by the crisis for a couple of years. “We
The consortium re-developing
45,000 sqm of land in the center
makes its opening move
Nina Fibigerová
Jean Nouvel’s vision for the re-development of the Masaryk train station
leaves large areas of green areas between buildings
and Martin Krupauer, AP Atelier, atelier – FNA,
Cigler Marani Architects and CMC Architects
were then presented at the exhibition called
The Future of the Masaryk station area,
organized by Masaryk Station Development
(MSD) at the Faculty of Architecture in Prague
Dejvice. “This is not a competition, we will not
choose a winner. Our aim is to present these
studies and open a wide public discussion.
The location deserves it,” said Tomáš
Kadeřádek, the project manager.
The re-development of the area is still in its
infancy, as a complex change to the master
plan will be required before anything
substantial can be built, says Kadeřábek. But
reconstruction of the historical buildings
of the railway station can proceed. MSD
signed a lease contract with Czech
Railways for 30 years, and will use the rent
revenues to cover the CZK 300m (€12.4m)
investment.
grabbed the opportunity and bought
the project with its construction permit
a year ago,” says Petr Kozojed, the
director of Real Treuhand. Designed
by the architects from pha studio, the
new building will replace an old villa
overlooking Radlická Street in Prague
5. It will offer 800 sqm of office space
and 50 parking spots, topped by 35
flats ranging from one-room units
to high-end maisonettes. A typical
80 sqm two-room flat goes for CZK
5.64m and Kozojed claims that reservations are already being made.
Development
Phase II of Classic
7 vs. Holešovice
vacancy
AFI Europe has begun construction on the
second phase of Classic 7 Business Park in
Holešovice, Prague 7, joining the rather thin
ranks of spec office developers. No pre-lease
has been signed for the next 11,000 sqm of
office space, which offers 225 parking spots
and additional shops and services. Designed
again by CMC Architects, which created
Classic 7’s design concept, the new building
is scheduled for completion in the third
quarter of 2012. Imos Brno has been chosen
as the general contractor.
Czech Republic
Testing the development waters
with a spec development in
Prague’s toughest office market
Nina Fibigerová
Klein also claims that current tenants are
looking to extend into the remaining space
in the existing three buildings, which offer
18,000 sqm. He admits that the Holešovice
neighborhood in Prague 7 tops Prague’s
office locations in terms of vacancy with 23
percent but he’s still confident that by the
time the new building is completed, the
market will be ready for it.
The amenities in the complex include a
conference hall, restaurant, café, dry cleaners
and tobacco shop. The new building will
close the fourth side of the rectangular
complex with a green courtyard and
fountain in the middle.
AFI might build speculatively despite the above-average vacancy in Holešovice
CEO Doron Klein says he anticipates that
financing will be forthcoming as banks are
able to consider Phases I and II together, and
the former is currently 80 percent occupied.
He’s also confident that pre-leases are on the
way. “We’re negotiating with two potential
anchor tenants for approximately 35 percent
of the space,” he says. “Even if they don’t
happen, the good performance of phase
one could persuade the existing lender, or
we can refinance phase one and finance the
second phase with another bank.”
Obi signs up for
Jihlava retail park
The investor Aventin will
begin construction on a
new retail park this September in Jihlava. Its CZK 500m, 23,000 sqm first phase
will offer 15 stores, anchored by a new
OBI store. It’s signed up for 9,000 sqm of
space in the retail park, which is located
at the main road to Pelhřimov.
The project was ready to go, but the deal
with OBI had to be concluded in order
for construction work to get underway.
With the 40 percent of the space now
31
pre-leased, the company has applied for
construction permit, which it expects to
obtain by the end of August. Meanwhile
Aventin has struggled so far to fill the
remaining units. It has considerable incentive to do so, as the bank financing
it’s agreed to requires 80 percent of the
space to be under lease before releasing
funds (along with a binding contract with
a builder).
The first phase, including a parking lot for
500 cars plus a McDonald’s restaurant,
is scheduled to open before Christmas
2012
Aventin has agreed terms with OBI to
anchor its Jihlava scheme
32
Czech Republic
Residential
Dutch done with
Czech vacation
homes
For its first two projects on Lipno Lake, the
Dutch developer Sparcs sold most of the
units to compatriots back home. The financial
crisis has ended that business model,
however, as many of the original clients are
now selling units off to the local population,
so the company will be focusing on Czech
clients for its latest scheme in Nová pec.
Adrianus Coolbergen, the developer’s
sales representative, says it was the brisk
pace of sales in the previous two projects
A Dutch developer turns to the
local market for vacation home
project
Nina Fibigerová
that persuaded the company to expand
its activities in the Czech Republic. Sparcs
built Marina Lipno, comprising 306
apartments between 2001 and 2005. It
followed this up with Lipno Lake Resort,
92 apartments in five buildings, in 2008.
Of the 92 apartments in five buildings at
Lipno Lake Resort, just seven are still on
offer, and four users plan to sell theirs.
“Its Dutch people who want to sell,” says
Coolbergen, “and its Czechs who want to
buy.”
Lipno vacation apartments target Czech end users
And it’s Czechs the developer will be targeting
for its latest scheme, 40 km away, in Nová
Pec, which the company turned to now that
there’s no further land available for expansion
at Lipno. Coolbergen says the company plans
to build 14 family houses in the first phase, to
test the market. The developer will negotiate
with its current lender, ČSOB, for a project
loan, but Coolbergen boasts the company
can tap into its own equity to build and sell
the houses one by one, if necessary.
“In the Czech market the effect of the crisis
was not so strong, we did not perceive
substantial drops in the pace of sales,” says
Coolbergen. He admits that their main
customer pool is Prague. “People who live
in České Budějovice, or Pilsen, will not buy
anything exceeding CZK 2.5m (€102.8m). Our
price has over the time moved from €150,000
to €170,000.”
With its EIA approved, Sparcs hopes to
secure a construction permit for the project
in Nová Pec by next year.
Avestus fills Jupiter
Jupiter, the first phase of Explora Business Centre, is 100
percent full thanks to a mix of
recent extensions and new tenants. GE International expanded its lease in the building by 615 sqm, while Knauf Installation has
added 200 sqm. A new lease was also signed
with the US company Intermec, which has
taken 208 sqm. This opens way for the developer, Avestus Real Estate, to concentrate
on getting works on the second phase of
the project underway. Two buildings – Neptun and Saturn, are scheduled for comple-
tion in 2013. Neptune will add 17,000 sqm
while Saturn will offer just 5,400 sqm.
“Our focus is on pre-leases, and we hope
to announce some significant agreements
with high-profile tenants this summer,” says
Guy Speir, Leasing and Marketing Director
for Avestus Real Estate across the CEE region. “The demand for quality office space
in a desirable location is huge in Prague,
and we believe the success of Jupiter, with
high profile tenants like Citibank, GE International, DHL, Tech Data, Honda etc, will be
replicated in Phase 2 of Explora.”
Explora Phase 1 is fully-leased
News
South Town in Brno
finally lifts off
The City of Brno-owned company
Jižní město (South Town) has signed
a contract with a private investor that
will kick off re-development of this 134
ha brownfield in the center of the city.
Europark – FP plans to build Palác Trnitá,
a mixed-use scheme near the Vaňkovka
shopping mall. Retail units will go on the
bottom levels, with 160 apartments to
be built above them.
Czech Republic
33
ECE‘s bid to add parking to
Vaňkovka was beaten in a
tender by a housing project
Nina Fibigerová
spots on three underground floors and
will landscape the 2,000 sqm in the
building’s courtyard.
Europark will begin the planning process
this year, together with clearance of the
site. The city is adamant the investor
complete Palác Trnitá by 2014. The
investor has also promised to build a
road connecting Trnitá to Boulevard,
a central thoroughfare that will run
through the entire South Center zone.
Palác Trnitá will add new apartments to the Brno residential market by 2014
The Slovak-owned Europark FP won
a tender held by Jižní město for the
re-development of the 6,900 sqm plot.
It beat out ECE, which had rather less
imaginatively proposed to build more
parking for its Vaňkovka shopping
center, despite the city’s preference for
new housing.
With 11,500 sqm of space in Palác Trnitá
to be devoted to flats, residential will
dominate the project, with the retail
component filling just 8,000 sqm. The
developer will construct 400 parking
No quick rebound for
the construction
sector
The Czech construction sector
continues to experience freefall, as figures for
the month of April indicate that output fell 6
percent, year-on-year. Building construction
only dropped 2.3 percent, but civil engineering plummeted 13.7 percent. Home completions in April, however, were a complete fiasco, as they came in 27.7 percent lower (2,091
fewer), while the 2,266 starts represented a
result 18.2 percent off of April 2010’s pace.
If there was a bright spot, it was that the
number of construction permits rose, albeit
by just 0.9 percent (9,210 in all). However,
the optimism was obliterated by the value of
those permits, which was CZK 24.3bn (€1bn)
lower than a year ago (a 35 percent reduction). This was chalked up to major reductions in investments into transport infrastructure and the power industry.
“The construction sector will have to face
another year of limited demand from both
private and public sectors,” ČSOB analyst
Petr Dufek told the Czech News Agency,
predicting that economic revival in construction would lag behind the other sectors. But
Markéta Šichtařová of Next Finance predicts
that the bottom has at least been reached for
the construction sector. Analysts don’t foresee
a return to pre-crisis levels earlier than 2013.
Construction still slow
34
Czech Republic
Residential
Aristocratic
development
planned
Jiří Lobkowicz plans to turn 263 ha of
land surrounding Mělník castle at the
confluence of the Vltava and Labe rivers
into a sprawling residential area called
Royal Mělník Park. The project features 859
family houses and villas scattered in the
greenery, two golf courses, two hotels and
a dock. It also calls for the construction of
various other outdoor sport facilities, such
as a swimming pool and a hippodrome.
The total investment should amount to
CZK 7.5 bn (€310.8m), even if Lobkowicz, a
descendant of a famous Czech aristocratic
Jiří Lobkowicz is formulating a
project requiring over €300m in
investments
Nina Fibigerová
family, plans to build on the land he owns
there. Lobkowicz is organizing road show
events in Berlin, Frankfurt and London this
autumn in order to raise capital.
He hopes a cornerstone ceremony
could take place next spring, though
Mělník‘s construction and conservationist
departments told the Czech News Agency
Lobkowicz has yet to apply for permits.
Nor has he discussed his plan to refurbish
a rococo manor house into a hotel.
Completion of the project is tentatively
scheduled for 2023.
The project would start with the
reconstruction of Hořín manor into a
five-star hotel, the construction of a
nine-hole golf course and a first phase
of apartment houses. The units will sell
at CZK 65,000 per sqm, and Lobkowicz
plans to re-invest the revenues to
finance the project’s second phase. The
prices for the houses will vary from CZK
60m, 800 sqm villas on 10,000 sqm of
land, to 75 sqm flats and senior living.
The intention is to make it attractive for
a variety of target groups.
Sales this year continue to slump, and Trigema expects stabilization at best for the rest of 2011
Trigema
Trigema has begun sales of a 3-villa scheme
called Rezidence 3D. To be located in
Modřany, Prague 4, the project offers 27 flats
of up to four bedrooms at prices ranging
from CZK 3.1 to 8.6m (€128,604 - €356,775),
roughly CZK 60,000 per sqm. No units have
been sold, but the developer claims it will
start construction in autumn 2011. All three
buildings are scheduled for completion in
autumn 2012.
Trigema’s scheme in Modřany
Source: Trigema
Czech Republic
Residential
Housing starts
roundup
35
Schemes coming out of the
ground today could have the
edge over yesterday‘s projects
X-LOFT
NeoRiviera
Central Group
Realitní společnost České spořitelny has
launched its sales campaign for apartments
in X-Loft, an energy efficient project
developed by Design Development Libeň,
Prague 8. The first phase of the project
is already nearing completion, with an
occupancy permit to be issued in August.
Of the 49 units in the first phase only seven
remain unsold, says the sales director of
the broker Miloš Červenka. “The focus on
ecological and economical aspects is a strong
sales driver nowadays. Original, reasonably
priced and energy efficient projects are
attractive for the buyers,” he adds. Of the 75
units planned for the second phase, one third
have already been sold. This enabled the start
of construction in June. The second phase
is scheduled for completion in August next
year. To boost sales further, the developer
offers to pay operational costs in the flat
for two years. The project is a mix of lofts,
two-level units and classic flats ranging from
one to five rooms. It’s the first residential
project to achieve silver certificate “SBToolCZ”,
granted by the Technický a zkušební ústav
stavební Praha in cooperation with the Czech
Technical University ČVUT.
Under a deal finalized in May, Neocity Group
and Skanska will work together on the
development and construction of NeoRiviera,
a 2,000-unit residential project in Prague 4
Modřany. Neocity Group will develop and
build 140,000 sqm of the scheme, with
Skanska responsible for the remaining 20,000
sqm. The Swedes will go first, beginning
construction on the brownfield site with 250
apartments in four buildings.
Central Group signed a contract in May to
build two more apartment buildings in Nové
Letňany in Prague 9. The latest phase will add
260 new units to the location, 100 of which
have been pre-sold, allowing construction to
start in June. Central Group chose Skanska as
the general contractor in a tender competed
for by nine companies. The project is
scheduled for completion in December 2012.
The CZK 500m project offers prices as low as
CZK 28,500 per sqm, with four-room flats as
large as they get. The developer will not use
bank financing for the scheme.
X-loft bets on economy
Skanska joins Neocity in Modřany
AFI
Finep
Finep is working on the fifth phase of its
Nová Harfa residential scheme in Vysočany,
Prague 9. Already, 1,500 apartments have
been sold in previous phases, and another
130 will be added during this latest round
of construction (of which 27 remain to be
sold). A total of 101 are due for completion
this autumn, with prices in this mass-market
scheme peaking at CZK 45,000.
Finep’s latest phase has just 130 units
AFI has begun construction on the 92-unit
second phase of Tulipa Rokytka, a residential
project in Prague Vysočany. The developer
claims to have signed 39 reservation
contracts on the units that offer a maximum
of four rooms, with a price range of CZK
1.9m – CZK 6.9m (€78,840 - €286,314).
Construction is scheduled for completion
in 2013. Just one of the 85 units in the first
phase remains unsold, according to AFI CEO
Doron Klein. The general contractor of the
project designed by Loxia is Casta, based in
Southern Bohemia.
Tulipa Rokytka
36
Czech Republic
Development
Lordship delayed
over spa-town
politics
Lordship is crouched at the starting block
of Central Park Karlovy Vary, an CZK 8bn
(€323m) investment, but it’s still waiting
for the city to fire the starting gun. Political
wrangling and intrigue following local
elections last fall has meant that the city’s
new leadership hasn’t given its seal of
approval yet on the project.
Lordship plans to re-develop a 15 ha
section of the city’s sprawling railway
station, reducing the number of groundlevel tracks from 17 to just 2, while
creating a transport hub underground
that integrates trams, trains and buses.
Karlovy Vary still reluctant to
give a CZK 8bn project a go
Nina Fibigerová
“Transport infrastructure will be built
in the first phase, together with one of
the hotels, a congress center, leisure and
shopping, to keep it in the black,” says
Lordship’s director Martin Pilka.
Central Park Karlovy Vary is believed
to be an CZK 8bn investment
The city wields power over the project
not just through its role in approving
urban planning matters, but also from
the fact that it owns some 18 percent of
the land in the area. Lordship has been
buying the rest from České dráhy step by
step since 2006, but the city has yet to
decide if it will create a joint venture with
the developer or sell its own land as well.
Political infighting in Karlovy Vary is blocking riverside development
To complicate matters, the city’s ruling
coalition collapsed in June, causing
further delays in the approval process.
Pilka insists that the city supports the
idea of re-developing the brownfield site,
but admits the company has had to make
adjustments because of transportation
infrastructure issues.
Architects from SIAL and Aslop created
the design, which includes a new park,
a square and a 2.5 km long colonnade
along the river Ohře. An aqua-park
and leisure center, a shopping mall
with offices and services, hotels and
apartment buildings are also included
in the ambitious plan. In all, the project
should offer 136,250 sqm of hotel and
conference space, 36,000 sqm of retail
and 53,000 sqm of residential space.
Lordship will start addressing potential
investors and lenders once it secures the
planning permit. The developer hopes
to be able to start construction in two to
three years.
CEO
+48 506 074 042 | fletcher@cijjournal.com
Sales Director Czech Republic & Slovakia
+ 420 224 225 613 | vodrazkova@cijjournal.com
Partners
Organizer
38
Hungary
Residental
Dallos: We haven‘t
hit bottom yet
Is the residential market at the bottom yet? I heard someone
say that at least a year ago about Hungary.
I don’t really think we’ve hit rock bottom, and if you look at the
trends, then we’re still heading downwards and we will be until the
end of 2011. Construction volume is down, sales are down, prices
are falling in some segments and stagnating in the others. So I believe there’s still room for decline on the Hungarian residential market. Overall the situation isn’t dire, but I’m sure it will take 3 years for
real growth to return.
Are there any signs of a growing pipeline yet? New construction?
The number of construction permits in Hungary declined from
28,000 in 2009 to 17,000 in 2010 and we expect it to be even lower
this year. In Budapest, for example I was astonished by the construction permit figures. In Q1 2010 there were 2,271 permits issued and
in Q1 2011 there were only 550. Even if you include seasonality,
that’s a marked decline. From what we’ve experienced with most
Senior associate Andras Dallos
(Colliers) warns there‘s more
pain in store for residential
of the developers is that most of them are waiting, either for the
market to get better, for incentives to become available, or for the
government to do something. Currently if you would try to apply
for a mortgage you’d be looking at interest rates of 8 - 10 percent.
That’s prohibitively high...
I fully understand why people aren’t taking out mortgages at such
rates. In the USA, 8 - 10 percent interest rates were associated with
sub-prime loans. In addition, the banks have become exceptionally prudent. They’re asking for a lot of information, and you have
to have relatively high income in order to get good LTV. Previously
it was common to have loans that were worth 80 to 90 percent of
the value of your flat. That’s impossible now. You’re looking at equity
of at least 25 percent, which means you have to have savings. So
the total transaction volume has basically halved over the past three
years. If I remember correctly, there were about 190,000 homes sold
in in 2007 and in 2010 it was only 82,000 units sold in the whole
country.
What will it take to turn things around? Rising GDP? More
employment? Easier financing conditions? Less unsold stock?
The turnaround is dependent on a lot of factors. Of course it’s also
dependent on how the current reforms play out. A lot of people
have benefited from the new tax laws and perhaps this will encourage them to purchase second homes. If I had a lot of disposable
cash I might buy an apartment now because they’re ridiculously
cheap. The personal income tax has been reduced, and for higherearning people this can amount to a rather hefty increase in disposable income. But real growth overall would have to come from middle class or average priced apartments. And it appears they haven’t
really benefited much from the reforms.
What’s the availability of financing like for developers?
Banks have become very squeamish. They’re not looking to finance
residential projects, only the best ones. If you have a residential
project in a very well-located area then I think you’d be able to get
financing and you’d be able to get pre-sales on them. But we’re talking about a very low volume. In terms of newly constructed projects,
only 4,000 were sold last year vs. 14,000 in 2008. That’s abysmal. And
there’s virtually no major multi-apartment project in the pipeline
right now. Maybe ten of them with 100 or more units.
hungary
Residential
Developers must be re-thinking
their projects. Is there a greater level
of pragmatism now, perhaps concentrating more on smaller flats?
A lot of apartments in higher quality
developments remain unsold because
they’re simply too big. If you have a sqm
price of HUF 400,000 per/sqm it’s not so
high, but if it’s for a 160 sqm flat, then
you’re looking at a very high sales price
that eliminates perhaps 80 percent of
potential buyers. Most developers will be
concentrating on 50 sqm to 60 sqm flats,
so 1-2 bedroom units. Those are the size
you’ll be able to sell.
How many unsold apartments are
there at the moment?
As far as I know, there are around 3,200
newly built, unsold apartments. That’s
actually very good because it means that
the pipeline of newly constructed homes
could be exhausted within two years and
that could drive up prices up fairly heavily.
They’re going to start competing now
with a new generation of projects with
better layouts, better prices led by developers who have learned their lessons. Can they compete? Won’t developers cut prices?
Only minimally. They simply won’t sell at
a loss of 10 percent.
But eventually, developers get desperate enough to sell at steep discounts.
They won’t sell. We should really distinguish between two types of products.
There’s product that’s marketable, but maybe it’s too big or slightly over-priced. Then
you have flats that simply aren’t marketable, sometimes because they’re located in
an area that makes them impossible to sell,
or they’re over-priced by 20 to 30 percent.
39
Prices for new flas are just above 2007
levels, but older units have crashed
2nd hand
dwellings
New
dwellings
2007. I.
100
100
2007. II.
100.6
102.8
2007. III.
93.7
106
2007. IV.
88.1
105.6
2008. I.
85.4
105.7
2008. II.
86.9
108.2
Where won’t they sell?
If you have an apartment building located
next to railroad tracks with 50 trains going
by your home ten meters away, you won’t
be able to sell that flat. Surprisingly, there
have been a number of developments like
that. There’s such an oversupply of product that buyers have become very picky.
2008. III.
83.6
109.6
2008. IV.
83
108.1
2009. I.
80.2
108.1
2009. II.
76.9
109.3
2009. III.
75.8
104.2
2009. IV.
69.5
102.6
2010. I
85
105.6
You hear people asking for lots of new
subsidies to jump-start the residential market, but didn‘t subsidies drive
up prices to unsustainable levels in the
first place?
They inflated prices quite heavily because a lot of people who didn’t have
steady income were able to buy flats. The
subsidies allowed people to live beyond
their means which didn’t help the residential market.
Imagine that in 2001, when subsidized
loans and other subsidies became available, year-on-year sales prices increased
2010. II.
75.7
102.7
100 = Price in Q1 2007
Source : Hungarian Statistics Office
30 percent. There wasn’t enough good
quality product, so people were willing
to pay a premium for the few that were
of good quality and were in a good location. Then the next year it increased by 40
percent. To this day, I can’t believe such
an increase was possible.
The number of construction permits in May 2011 for residential projects was less than half the number in May 2007
Residential
buildings
Of which those
with one dwelling
2007
1 813
325 339
1 510
202 708
54
5 488
838
309 477
2008
1 635
345 412
1 244
168 665
73
13 041
732
334 182
2009
1 550
270 195
1290
172 544
41
4 298
418
222 79
2010
667
155 641
535
76 749
44
5 437
430
244 780
2011
671
123 882
557
84 434
36
3 593
518
207 176
Holiday houses
Non-residential
buildings
Source : Hungarian Statistics Office
40
hungary
News
Duna Bellview
nearly half let
An attractive location has
helped the office building fill up
after Nestlé‘s exit
Robert McLean
Duna Bellview Office building, known
until recently as the Nestle building,
is now 42 percent occupied following
decisions from three companies to
move in. Along with the landlord, and a
construction company called Buildersite
(which took 365 sqm), a third tenant,
Kyäni Hungary Ltd has agreed to take
nearly 600 sqm on two floors in the
2,300 sqm building, according to Marian
Tóth, an office leasing consultant at
Colliers International. The building
offers a prominent location at Ybl
Miklós square, under the Buda castle in
Budapest’s central District I.
In a tender held last summer, Newland
Estates acquired the ex-headquarters
of Nestle, which left the building in May
2010 when it moved into Millennium
Office Towers. Newland Estates led
a group of investors to purchase the
building that Nestle had refurbished ten
years previously.
Budapest airport
stake sold
Hungary sold a 25 percent
stake in the Budapest airport to the German construction giant
Hochtiet. The country’s National Asset
Management body exercised a put option to sell the stake in the airport, whose
value is estimated to be HUF 36.6bn. It
expected to be paid within 30 days of
the announcement on June 15. Hochtief
already held a 37.3 percent share in the
airport operator.
According to recent data released, the airport’s 9,000 employees produced net revenues of HUF 341bn in 2009. Over the first
five months of the year, 3.2 million passengers have passed through the airport,
a 13.1 percent increase compared to the
same period in 2010. Overall in 2010, 8.19
million passengers were transported in
2010, representing growth of 1.2 percent.
With the new terminal in place,
Hungary’s stake has been reduced
20th October 2011
Bank Center
FORUM PROGRAM
20th October 2011
Bank Center Conference Rooms | Szabadsag ter 7
H-1054 Budapest | Hungary
09:00 – 09:30 Breakfast
09:30 – 10:15 Hungary’s place in the investment world still shaky
In their strategic thinking, some investors are currently lumping Hungary in with Eastern Europe. Some of those who don’t say this out
loud admit openly that they’ll buy in Prague and Warsaw before they make a move in Budapest. Why is this so? And is this justified, or are
they missing opportunities and discounts that are unlikely to be repeated?
10:15 – 10:45 Debate – Office: Not as bad as it looks? Or worse?
Budapest’s vacancy rate actually fell at the end of 2010, but that only brought it back to roughly the same level it had began the year.
With no rapid economic turnaround forecast, is it feasible to expect improvement? What is the best strategy for banks and developers
with exposure to this sector?
10:45 – 11:15 Debate – Euro: Yes or No? and The new vision for Budapest
Forget for a moment whether Europe will be in any mood to accept Hungary into the Eurozone, whether the country could actually
qualify in the near-term. Would developers and investors see it as an improvement over the chronically weak forint in view of the current
European debt crisis? How about the local banks? Should the government’s strategy be to push for accession as rapidly as possible? The
elections are over, the old ties have been broken, paving the way for a new vision about where the city is going. So, where is it going? What
will be the most important new directions of the current administration? What do we know about the priorities of the new city administration, and how can private developers best prepare for the next few years?
11:15 – 11:45 Coffee break
11:45 – 12:30 Retail: The end of the mall development era
Consumer spending has finally bottomed out in Hungary, so what comes next? Older, established shopping malls have been getting
make-overs as owners invest in order to keep them competitive, and it turns out they can still be competitive. Is the era of new malls over
for now? How hungry are retailers for widespread expansion, if at all? Will the lack of new malls prevent new brands from coming in?
12:30 – 13:30 Lunch
Partner
Dalma Mózes | Sales & Marketing Manager | +36 1 373 0429 | mozes@cijjournal.com
Media Partner
Organizer
42
Poland
Office
Business Garden
is speculatively
sustainable
Hardly a month goes by in Poland without
a developer announcing that its next
office project will be certified with one of
the green credentials systems. Should the
trend continue, 2011 could be the year in
which the development pendulum swung
permanently to the green side.
Arguably the most significant example of
this low energy, high efficiency trend is
SwedeCenter’s Business Garden in Warsaw.
The project, whose cornerstone was laid in
June, is being carried out in order to receive a
LEED certificate.
SwedeCenter, part of Inter Ikea Group, will
deliver Business Garden in phases, the first of
SwedeCenter has kicked off an
ambitiously green, Poland-wide
program of office development
Wojciech Kość
which will have two office buildings (14,600
sqm and 17,500 sqm GLA) along with a 200room business hotel and conference center.
The buildings are to go online towards the
end of 2012.
By 2014, Business Garden should be finished,
featuring 90,000 sqm GLA in seven buildings,
making it one of the biggest office projects
currently underway in Warsaw.
According to SwedeCenter’s commercial
director Eelko Korteweg, however, its size
is actually understated compared to the
amount of land it sits on. “I know that 90,000
sqm is already a big project, but on that
plot we could be developing even more,” he
claims. There are large chunks of space that
The developer of Business Garden intends to leverage the project’s large scale to make
sustainability profitable
the project has reserved for green areas, at
least in the visualizations. Korteweg suggests
that as the industry’s environmental
standards tighten, other projects will have
to adapt in similar ways in order to be
competitive.
With SwedeCenter’s not planning to flip
the project upon completion, Korteweg
adds, the tenants will be guaranteed that
the complex will remain a consistent
whole. “When developments get sold,
each building to a different investor, there’s
no common interest in the entire project
anymore,” he says.
SwedeCenter is preparing two other Business
Garden projects in Poznań and Wrocław. Both
will be LEED-certified and their size attest
to the reviving office market in Poland: the
Poznań development will have 80,000 sqm
of space for rent, while Wrocław’s could see as
much as 120,000 sqm of new build.
Other ongoing office projects in Warsaw
aiming to receive an environmental
certificate include UBM’s Poleczki Business
Park, Capital Park’s Eurocentrum, and
Skanska’s Green Corner.
National Stadium
delayed until
December
The opening of Poland’s flagship sporting arena for the upcoming Euro
2012 football tournament is now officially
delayed until November 29. The stadium’s
operator, Narodowe Centrum Sportu (NCS),
made the announcement in June after its inspection in May revealed a serious flaw in the
construction in the 55,000-seat facility’s stairs.
In mid-June, NCS agreed new terms with the
consortium of companies building this future
shrine to football. But it came at a price: Alpine-Bau, once the leader of the consortium,
has been demoted to a partner in the project,
while Hydrobudowa is now in charge of the
group, which also includes PBG.
The NCS warned that if new terms are
not met and the contract is terminated
because of mistakes by the contractors,
a fee of PLN 250m (€63.50m) will be imposed. According to local press, however,
the consortium has already been spared
paying penalties for the delay in putting
together the stadium’s steel frame and
for failing to deliver the project on time
on June 30. The Euro 2012’s opening
game on the National Stadium is scheduled for June 8, 2012.
News
sheraton cost cuts
Warsaw-listed
development company Europejski
Fundusz Hipoteczny (EFH)
has had a Sheraton hotel in the works
in Poland’s Mazury lake district resort of
Mikołajki since 2008. Oblivious to the approaching crisis, the project’s oversized
budget stood at PLN 300m (€76m) just before its financing evaporated. Now, having
revised the project’s basic parameters, EFH
has taken the hotel off the shelf, claiming it
could get the project going with a budget
of just PLN 200m (€50.5m).
The story of Sheraton’s budget is a good illustration of how far the market has moved
in just a few years. The new budget might
be strikingly lower, but Marcin Podobas,
EFH’s vice president, says that the original
budget was a typical child of the boom. “It
was a time of high costs, high prices, and
high margins. Today’s situation is different.
We can optimize several cost categories
real estate advertising agency
that amount to several millions in savings,”
he says. “Our shareholders aren’t interested
in overpaying on anything. [They want] to
reach a set goal while spending as little as
possible,” he says.
According to Podobas, EFH is now able to
spend less on a whole series of services,
including fundamental ones of general
contracting and subcontracting. However,
the drive to save money seems much more
powerful today than just accommodating
lower costs of other elements down the
development chain. Podobas says that the
project’s design was stripped of a range
of non-essentials, like non-standard sized
doors, and paddling pools in the hotel’s
spa section.
Echo permitted for
Galeria Amber
Echo Investment has acquired a building permit
for the construction of Galeria Amber in
Poland
43
Kalisz, a town of 100,000 people located
in the Poznań region. Galeria Amber will
be a 4-storey shopping and entertainment
center developed on a central location in
Kalisz, next to the town’s main bus and train
stations, at the junction of Górnośląska and
Trasa Bursztynowa streets.
Its lettable area amounts to 33,500 sqm. Galeria Amber will feature 140 outlets, including cafes and restaurants. A seven-screen
cinema is also planned, to be operated by
Helios. The project has already seen some
leasing activity, with a trio of two-level
leases: H&M is taking up 1,600 sqm, C&A
will cover 1,700 sqm and New Yorker’s new
store is just over 1,000 sqm.
It will be a debut on the local market for
these three brands. Echo says it’s currently
getting close to finalizing contracts with
other clothing brands, an electronics shop
and a hypermarket. Bose International
Planning and Architecture architectural
studio created the architectural concept.
44
Poland
Industrial
Goodman makes
good in spec
challenge
The developer has survived its
first plunge into the icy waters of
speculative development
Marcin Śmietana
Bucking the current penchant for caution,
industrial developer Goodman completed
the first 15,500 sqm of warehouse and
office space on a 31.5 ha plot it eventually
plans to fill with 150,000 sqm of leasable
space. Construction began just outside
Kraków with just 25 percent of the
building leased (to Scot). By the time it was
completed, 75 percent of the building was
spoken for before completion.
other 3,500 sqm leases were in place by
February with Eurodruk (printing) and
Farutex (food distribution), who took a
total of 1,000 sqm of office space as well.
Renata Osiecka, an analyst at Axi Immo,
says increased office space may be crucial
in convincing companies to pay the higher
effective rents (around €3.5 per sqm/
month) currently charged around Kraków.
In Silesia, the figure is closer to €2.5.
“We hope to be able to announce the
name of the last tenant for the remaining
25 percent of the building in June, as it will
officially open for operations in July,” says
Zbigniew Kmiecik, Goodman’s regional
development manager for southern
Poland.
Goodman also secured a 75 percent lease
(around 15,000 sqm) with Vale for a 21,658
sqm building now under construction
next to the existing one. The company
produces lighting components for
automobiles.
Goodman started construction in October
last year on the back of a 3,500 sqm lease
from Scot, a local company distributing
supplies for printers and copiers. Two
Office swap in
Warsaw
Immofinanz Group said in
mid-June that it was “taking its next growth and optimization step
in Warsaw” by acquiring the remaining 49
percent of the Warsaw class-A office property Equator and the adjoining office development project Nimbus from its original
project partner, Karimpol. In exchange, Karimpol will purchase the 51 percent share it
needs for complete control of the adjacent
Cirrus development project from Immofinanz Group. The parties are refusing to reveal details about the deal.
“Warsaw is currently the most attractive
Valerie Vanbiervliet, director for Benelux
and Central Eastern Europe, says that the
investment has been targeted at local or
locally present entities from the beginning.
She hints that another 12,000 sqm deal is
market for office properties in Eastern Europe. This transaction represents a milestone in the implementation of our strategy to take full responsibility for projects
and thereby optimize our investment
structure,” said Manfred Wiltschnigg,
member of the Executive Board of the
Immofinanz Group. The Equator, Nimbus
and Cirrus development projects were
part of a joint venture with Karimpol created in 2006. The 19,100 sqm Equator Office Building was completed in 2008 and
is fully-occupied. Planning for Nimbus is
currently is now at an advanced stage,
meaning that construction on the 20,000
sqm scheme could begin by 2012.
in the works.
Goodman has been involved in the Polish
market since 2005, and currently manages
a portfolio that’s grown to 130,000 sqm.
The developer now claims it’s ready to
ramp up production with hundreds of
millions of Euro in new investments.
Vanbiervliet says Goodman could build
1m sqm on its current land holdings
alone, including the Pomerianian Logistics
Centre, a 500,000 sqm scheme that would
service the Deepwater Container Terminal
in Gdańsk. The center is thought to
represent an investment of €300m.
“The plans of the company throughout
Poland will have to rely strongly upon
its aggressive price offers, because
the company can’t count on new
requirements, and will have to rely on relocations instead,” says Osiecka.
Manfred Wiltschnigg (Immofinanz)
News
Financingsecuredfor
Andersia Business
Centre
Andersia Business Center
(ABC), a joint-venture development between
the city of Poznań and Von der Heyden Group,
secured financing for the €33m project from
Bank Zachodni WBK. The project’s now entering the stage of above-ground works,
which will take 14 months, with delivery set
for September 2012. Upon completion, ABC
will offer 11,200 sqm of GLA office space as
well as 2,300 sqm of GLA retail space on the
ground floor. Referring to the current shape
of development financing market, Sven von
der Heyden, chairman of the group, said that
he was “relieved” to secure financing. “Getting projects of this size financed is not easy
these days,” he said in the company’s press
release. According to the developer, ABS,
which is a part of larger scheme located on
Poznań’s Anders Square is “a prime example
of a consistent development policy of the
city”. Von der Heyden Group is planning to
develop two more towers on the site with a
total rentable area of 35,000 sqm.
Adgar buys property
in Warsaw
Tel Aviv-listed property investor and developer Adgar
Investments and Development (Adgar)
purchased a property in the Wola district of
Warsaw, where BMW Inchcape’s showroom
and service point are situated. The property
comprises over 4,000 sqm of leasable area
on a plot of about 8,000 sqm. The financial
details of the transaction were not disclosed.
“The purchase of this property in Warsaw is in
line with our growth strategy, according to
which we will continue to invest in incomeproducing assets. We intend to realize further
investments in Poland, and we are currently
looking for more land for development in
Warsaw,” said Eyal Litwin, Adgar’s vice president. Adgar already owns Adgar Plaza, Adgar
Business Centre and Adgar Business Centre
II office buildings, along with Adgar Plaza
Conference Centre - the company’s own development. All are situated in the Mokotów
district of Warsaw. According to Colliers International, which brokered the deal, the site in
question has “excellent long-term development potential,” but Adgar has yet to disclose
its plans for it.
Balmoral buys
central Warsaw plot
Balmoral Properties Poland
Group has purchased a 3
ha plot of land in central Warsaw, at Kłopot
and Kłopot Bis streets, in the vicinity of the
capital city’s biggest mall Arkadia and the
Dworzec Gdański metro station. In line with
the recently approved master plan for the
neighborhood, Balmoral plans to develop
a mixed-use complex, featuring about 600
residential units and 20,000 sqm of office
space. The investor is currently selecting an
architectural company to work on the design.
Construction work is scheduled to start in the
second half of 2012. Balmoral Properties Poland Group has been active in the Polish market for three years. “It is our ambition to create
large scale residential and mixed-use projects
characterized by good design to provide
high quality environments for people to live
and work in central city areas,” pledges the
company’s managing director Alun Jones.
Poland
45
Elsewhere in Poland, the developer is doing
regeneration work on on the former Goetz
Brewery in Krakow, where it will execute a
300 residential unit project along with 7,000
sqm of offices and 5,000 sqm of retail space.
Balmoral Properties’ Polish portfolio also features an office building in Warsaw and the
Baltic Spa aparthotel in Świnoujście.
New head of developers’associationPZFD
The Polish Association of Developers (PZFD) (the sector’s
lobby organization primarily for residential
developers) has a new chairman. Zbigniew
Wojciech Okoński, CEO of Robyg has taken
the helm from Jarosław Szanajca, CEO of
Dom Development. Okoński, it appears, isn’t
going to redefine the organization’s goals,
having pledged to continue with the strategy
of making the regulatory framework easier
and simpler for development, while creating a more “positive image” for the sector.
Okoński has been with Robyg since 2007,
but while his earlier positions in 2000’s included stints at Prokom Investments (where
Okoński co-authored the concept of the now
rapidly growing residential estate Miasteczko
Wilanów in Warsaw), Elektrim, BRE Bank and
the State Agency for Foreign Investment. He
was a deputy minister in the 1990s (economic cooperation with foreign states) and a had
stint as the minister of defense.
Wojciech Okoński, CEO of Robyg
46
Poland
Industrial
HB Reavis clinches
PKP deal
It didn’t take long for the Slovak rookies to
find their feet on Poland’s development
market. Having confirmed a solid, standard
office project in Mokotów, the developer
HB Reavis has moved on to clinching a far
grander scheme. Together with Polish State
Railways (PKP), it will attempt to transform
the eyesore that is the Warsaw West train
station into a modern transportation hub, in
return for the opportunity to develop offices
and a retail center on the site.
The deal is typical of the ones PKP is signing
with developers around the country. The
state-owned company has a number of
centrally-located plots in virtually all of
Poland’s major cities. Developers refurbish a
new station building (or build it from scratch)
but they get a free hand to develop on large
tracts of adjacent PKP-owned land. Such
deals have been agreed in Poznań (with
TriGranit) and in Katowice (with Neinver).
In both cities, developers will execute large
mixed-use schemes.
Warsaw West is one of the capital’s three
main train stations, but PKP’s shocking
Mayland starts
Nimfea
Mayland is another retail
developer that’s de-freezing a project postponed due to the financial crisis. The company is re-starting its
Nimfea retail project in Piła, which was
originally supposed to have opened to
the public in 2010. Mayland is currently in
the process of renewing the construction
permit for the development, a procedure
it hopes to conclude this year.
The new kid on the block isn’t
wasting much time making its
mark on the Polish market
Wojciech Kość
management has left it in pitiful condition.
Along with that refurbishment, HB Reavis will
attempt to build a 7-building, 54,000 sqm
GLA business center, plus 1,000 sqm of retail
on the ground floors of the office buildings.
The project will be accessible from Aleje
Jerozolimskie, one of Warsaw’s fast growing
office sub-markets.
The Slovak developer is helping
transform a transport eyesore
HB Reavis says that the €110m BREEAM
project will begin with an upgrade of the
train station in 2014, while the last building
of the office complex will go online in 2017.
The Slovak company began discussions
with PKP, when the railway giant broke off
negotiations on Warsaw West with French
developer Nexity. Both parties blamed the
other for the difficulties, with Nexity claiming
that PKP consistently failed to understand
the realities of commercial property
development in uncertain times.
HB Reavis has perhaps gotten its timing
right. Demand for office space is looking
increasingly solid, to the point that for the
first time in years in Warsaw, construction is
Nimfea will be located in Piła, a town of
75,000 in western Poland, in the province
of Poznań. Mayland will use bank financing for the 25,000 sqm GLA project, but
declined to disclose details, including
Nimfea’s overall cost. The project is now
scheduled to go online towards the end
of 2013. The project in Piła is part of Mayland’s development plan to deliver seven
shopping centers across Poland, whose
total GLA will be approximately 300,000
sqm.
kicking off on an office tower (Warsaw Spire
from Ghelamco). HB Reavis is also carrying
out another office development project in
Warsaw, the 48,000 sqm GLA Konstruktorska
Business Center.
Stanislas Frnka, HB Reavis managing director
in Poland, says he’s focusing solely on
Warsaw. “We won a tender for a plot in Kielce,
where we’re currently clearing some land
title issues, but we’re going to announce a
project there soon. It will be a 40,000 sqm
GLA shopping center,” Frnka says.
Nimfea gets another chance
Q&A
Puzdrowski: Prices
could still fall
Why shouldn’t prices just keep falling, given the rising interest rates of the Polish central bank or the growing supply?
In Warsaw, there’s a strong risk that developers will compete on prices,
which is a more likely scenario now with the influx of developers from
outside Warsaw starting their projects. There’s also one factor contributing to where the prices may go that hardly anyone speaks about: consumer behavior. If most media outlets are writing that prices about to
take a fall, then consumers will wait for the fall to materialize. What do
developers do when customers are waiting, or unwilling to close deals?
They come down on price. There are a lot of techniques for doing that like offering free parking spaces - but they all boil down to lower prices.
So, the scenario of prices falling in Warsaw is very likely.
That’s why Polnord has been diversifying its residential development
activity in the sense that we are one of few big companies with projects
scattered across many local markets. We hope that this will give us a
competitive advantage because branching out in the residential development sector isn’t easy.
Why do residential developers so seldom get involved outside their home markets?
Development companies going into a new market must learn all about
this market. You have to learn what the city is like, what its districts are
like, what residents there need and and what they think about the attractiveness - or the lack of it - of some locations. Then you need to understand what your local competition is doing and what the property
market’s like in terms of prices, transaction volume, and so on. Then you
need to get to know the local administration because the biggest challenge now is getting a construction permit, not the construction itself.
You need to learn how to cooperate with the administration because
while we have the same laws all over Poland, their implementation
does vary from city to city. Finally, there’s the human factor, which includes all aspects of hiring local people or relocating your own people
to a new location. The result is that most developers would rather stick
to their own backyard and capitalize on their experience there.
Where is office demand going to come from for developments that
are getting underway right now?
According to all the market reports, Warsaw office space take-up is
growing. We aren’t experiencing that yet, because we’re not leasing our
next office project before the fall. But I can see that there are two trends
that new office projects may take advantage of: relocations from older
Poland
47
Bartosz Puzdrowski (Polnord)
wonders if the residential
market has really hit bottom
office buildings, for example in Służewiec, where some older projects
are not cutting it anymore in terms of effectiveness. The other trend
could be leasing office space in złoty, targeting companies doing their
financials in the Polish currency. It’s a market segment that’s barely addressed by developers of office space of a corporate standard.
Are rents in the Polish złoty a way to attract locally based tenants
only?
The target doesn’t even have to be local firms. It can be Tesco, for example, as it’s using its market strength at the moment to have its stores pay
rent in złoty in order to avoid currency risk.
Are you on the bandwagon of green certification for office
buildings? Is it really give any real advantage for developers?
Certification is an independent tool that can be useful to developers
trying to win tenants by, for example, guaranteeing them costs of office space for the entire lease period. Certification is also an incentive
for developers to think long-term about their projects, not just in the
perspective of building and selling them. In the future, I think, developers will have developers answer tenants’ questions of long-term costs of
office space as a standard practice.
48
POLAND
Residential
Quick fix eludes
residential sector
With prices still sliding according to many
observers of Poland’s residential market,
consumers should be having a field day
picking up the homes of their dreams.
Nightmarish financing conditions, however,
are throwing up serious obstacles and
slowing the pace of sales down considerably.
What this means for the future growth of the
sector is for once a matter of debate amongst
residential developers, who have traditionally
put forward a unified stance. In fact, the bulls
have finally separated from the bears.
Bartosz Puzdrowski, CEO of Polnord, is in
the latter camp, as he says residential prices
will be lucky just to keep up with inflation
(see p. 37). “Demand will definitely take a
hit,” he says. And the strategic conclusion he
draws from that is populist, as Polnord will be
focusing on developing cheaper, mid-market
flats in order to increase turnover.
His counterpart at the rival developer
Marvipol, however, says that fewer
mortgages means that its customers
Banks are nervous, developers
cautious and home buyers are
unconvinced
Wojciech Kość
are better screened by the banks -- and
therefore less risky. “Pricing is just about right
now, unlike the unsustainable levels of 20062008,” says Marvipol’s deputy CEO Sławomir
Horbaczewski, quoting the PLN 5,990
(€1,494) price per sqm that his company
seeks for one of its recent projects in Warsaw.
No one wants residential prices to continue
falling, but just about everyone is warning
that banks should remain vigilant. Last
year, for example, the Polish financial body
called the KNF issued a recommendation
(Recommendation T) which limited access to
loans and mortgages. That recommendation
is now being implemented by the banks.
And there are other concerns, like rising
inflation, which has spurred the Monetary
Policy Council to increase the WIBOR interest
rates four times during 2011, driving up the
cost of mortgages. To top it off, the Swiss
franc has been appreciating against the
złoty, much to the dismay of the hundreds
of thousands of Poles who took out Swiss
currency mortgages in the 2000’s.
According to Grzegorz Żochowski, partner
and head of capital markets at the REAS
consultancy, banks should take care to
maintain the health of their mortgage
portfolio, but they have little to worry about
in the short-term.
“Banks should worry instead about
consumer loans instead, where bad loans
make for 15-18 percent of the total,” he
says. “Unpaid mortgages are maybe three
percent.”
He admits, however, that the financial
conditions for issuikng mortgages are
worsening and the market can expect a
moderate fall in residential prices through
2012. That, in turn, will prolong the time until
demand will get a boost. “Customers will just
wait until prices have fallen to acceptable
levels. This will take time,” says Żochowski.
“A sudden boost in demand will only come
when prices take a steep fall - which may
happen once developers see that it’s taking
them too long to sell and they decide to be
more aggressive on prices,” he adds.
For now, developers are doing the rational
thing and limiting their output. “Developers
are more cautious in taking decisions to start
new projects,” he says.
According to Poland’s Main Statistics Office
GUS, developers delivered 15,206 flats in
Poland between January and May 2011, a
drop of 28.8 percent against the same period
of 2011. As for new projects, 23,583 flats
were begun this year, 13.3 percent less than
in 2010.
Czech Republic
Poland
and
Slovakia
Marta Niezgoda | Sales & Events Manager PL | +48 22 848 60 21 | niezgoda@cijjournal.com
Zuzana Vodrážková | Sales Director CZ & SK | + 420 224 225 613 | vodrazkova@cijjournal.com
50
Poland
Construction
A2: Made in
China...not!
In June, Poland’s road agency, the
GDDKiA, canceled its contract with the
Chinese contractor Covec to build two
sections of the A2 motorway linking
Warsaw and Łódź. Trouble first surfaced
when subcontractors working under
Covec went on strike, demanding to
be paid. Covec eventually admitted it
had run into cost overruns and began
It‘s not just the Chinese
contractor that‘s losing face on
the A2 fiasco
Wojciech Kość
demanding additional payment to
continue work, but the GDDKiA refused
to budge.
Covec’s demise was the surprising end to
what had been seen as the beginning of
a new era for Poland’s construction sector.
Instead, questions are being raised about the
competence of the Polish state as an investor.
Maybe the state should consider whether the lowest bid offered in a tender is also feasible
GDDKiA’s came under criticism for
having to cope with problems it should
have seen when Covec was bidding
for the contract. After all, Covec’s
price was just half of the PLN 2.6bn
(€660m) estimate GDDKiA’s valuers had
expected to pay. Even with the benefit
of hindsight, however, the agency isn’t
taking on any portion of blame. “GDDKiA
requires bidders to prove at least five
years of experience in construction
or reconstruction of motorways or
expressways, to have enough competent
people, and to show average turnover for
the last three years of at least PLN 400m
(€100m),” wrote GDDKiA in a statement.
With those criteria met by all bidders,
price was the deciding factor.
As a result of the fiasco, the road will
not be ready (as promised) for European
drivers flocking to the Euro 2012 football
championships, a major embarrassment
for the government. Covec had hoped to
leverage the A2 contract into access to
Europe’s wider construction market, but
its failure suggests Chinese contractors
aren’t up to the job yet.
Half of B4B open for
business
TriGranit has delivered two
buildings from its Bonarka4Business office complex in Kraków. The
buildings form half of an office park that
complements the Hungarian developer’s
earlier development on the location, Bonarka City Center shopping mall. Developed
in a joint-venture with the Slovak-based IPR
Group, the two new office buildings will offer close to 15,700 sqm of office space to
lease. According to TriGranit, nearly all of
the space has been let to tenants that include Alexander Mann Solutions or Fitness
Center Pure. Jones Lang LaSalle did the
leasing for the developers. Upon completion (expected in 2013), Bonarka4Business
will offer 32,000 GLA sqm of office space in
four buildings.
B4B will add a new dimension to
TriGranit’s scheme in Krakow
Deals
C&A, Robyg and
Grup Buma
CNOS Garden added 1,758 sqm of mostly
warehouse space to its current lease at
Segro’s Tulipan Park Poznań. The company
now rents a total of 9,000 sqm, with its
extension bringing the the project to full
occupancy.
Clothing retailer C&A leased 1,455 sqm
in Futura Park Kraków, a 22,000 GLA sqm
outlet development from Neinver, due to
come online in October.
Ernst & Young extended its lease of 11,000
sqm in Rondo 1, a prime office tower in
Warsaw owned by a fund managed by
MGPA. The company is now set to remain
in the building until 2021.
A press distributor leased 5,300 sqm at
Panattoni Park Gdańsk and 5,400 sqm
at Panattoni Business Center Łódź in
a transaction brokered by Jones Lang
LaSalle. The new tenant will move into
buildings now under construction by the
US developer.
Mark-7, a wholesaler of food products,
is the first tenant to sign up at MARR
Business Park in Cracow. It will occupy over
1,700 sqm of warehouse, office and social
space. Cushman & Wakefield advised on
the transaction.
Zara, Stradivarius, Bershka, and Pull & Bear
will occupy a total of 3,350 sqm of space in
the expanded Wzgórze Shopping Centre
in Gdynia, a Mayland Real Estate project.
Upon expansion, the center‘s size will be
68,000 sqm GLA.
Panattoni Europe has been
Poland
51
Retailers made up a big portion
of the deals done in June
contracted by the automobile sector
company Faurecia to build its next BTS
manufacturing facility. The facility will
take up 17,600 sqm. Work is set to start
at the end of June on the new plant, and
will be the tenant’s second facility at the
Kostrzyn-Słubice Special Economic Zone
near Gorzów Wielkopolski.
Pure Health & Fitness leased 1,270 sqm in
Millennium Hall, a 56,600 sqm GLA retail
development in Rzeszów by Develop
Investment. The mall’s due to open in
October 2011.
Clothing retailer Top Secret and Friends
leased 400 sqm in Galeria Sfera, a project
by Gemini Holdings in Bielsko Biała.
Residential developer Robyg launched
the construction of Albatross Towers, a
three-phase residential project in Gdańsk.
On completion in 2014, the project will
feature three 17-storey buildings with 720
flats, priced between €1,500 and €2,100
per sqm.
Shoe retailer CCC leased 279 sqm in
Krokus, a mall in Kraków owned by GE
Real Estate Poland.
Non-food outlet operator Pepco Poland
leased 323 sqm in Dekada Myślenice,
a convenience mall in Myślenice, near
Kraków. Dekada is a 3,400 sqm GLA
development by Foren Group that should
open in the second half of 2011. Another
Dekada mall, in Kraków, secured the
delicatessen grocery store Alma, which
leased 1,310 sqm in the 3,500 sqm GLA
development, opening in the fall of 2012.
Hyundai Motor Poland has rented 1,000 sqm
in Mokotów Nova, one of three ongoing
office projects Ghelamco’s building in
Warsaw. Hyundai will move into its new
premises in September, joining Cargill and
the project’s developer as tenants.
Warsaw-listed residential specialist Gant
Development secured a PLN 57.5m
(€14.34m) loan from Bank Millennium for its
Wrocław project Odra Tower. The 18-storey,
243-flat project is scheduled to deliver in
August 2012.
Kraków-based developer Grupa Buma
confirmed that two of its ongoing office
buildings, parts C and D, in the Quattro
Business Park in Kraków will receive BREEAM
certification with a “very good” rating. In
the meantime, the developer also began
construction of the third phase of a scheme
it calls Green Office - a 10,000 sqm GLA
building that should be ready by the third
quarter of 2012.
Polonia Property Fund has filled two of its
Kraków office buildings - CBL I and CBL II after leasing more than 10,000 sqm of space
in the projects to Capita Group, Bank BZ WBK,
PwC, Polmed, and unnamed firms from the
IT and banking sector. All transactions were
brokered for the developer by Knight Frank.
DTZ brokered more than 2,000 sqm in
leases for its client Libra Project’s 32,000
sqm scheme Galeria Leszno. They are C&A,
Stradivarius and Douglas.
Magna Car Top Systems Poland doubled the
space it leases in MLP Group’s MLP Tychy
production and warehouse facility to more
52
Romania
Land
Land prices in
free-fall
Big box retailers are the only
reliable source of demand for
land, so for most plots, there’s
no interest
Amelia Turp-Balazs
Assuming the numbers about the
land market are correct, then alarmistsounding headlines are justified. The
price of centrally located land has
dropped on average by 50 percent
since their peak before the crisis, while
secondary locations have suffered an
even more acute correction of up to 70
percent.
“Transactions closed so far this year
prove that the land market has
surpassed the blockage we have
been stuck in since the second half of
2008,” says Sanziana Oprea, a Colliers
International consultant. “Having said
that, we still can’t speak of a genuine
market revival...and prices continue to
trend slightly downwards.”
Roughly speaking, after a continuous
decline in value for past three years,
land prices are back to levels last seen
in 2004-2005. The question today is
whether recent activity means the prices
have at least hit the floor yet.
However, Oprea expects 2011 to be a
more active year than 2010 on the land
market, “given the advanced stage of
negotiations that many transactions
initiated in the first period of this year
are currently in.” Colliers is currently
seeking a buyer for a 13.8 ha plot owned
by Policolor-Orgachim in east Bucharest.
It’s the remaining half of the former
Policolor industrial zone, following the
construction on the first half of the plot
of a retail park now filled with retailers
like Real Hypermarket, OBI, Metro and
Decathlon.
Ionut Petcu
(The Advisers/Knight Frank)
Warehouse retailers, in fact, have been
the land vendors’ only consistent hope
for more than a year now. “Since the
beginning of 2010, the most soughtafter plots have been those fit for retail
projects, mainly for big boxes within the
city limits, both in Bucharest and other
Romanian towns,” says Ionut Petcu, a
senior consultant in the Advisers/Knight
Frank’s land division. “Another category
of land which has attracted investors’
eyes was for plots of 5,000 sqm – 10,000
sqm, preferably located near a metro
station. The buyers are mostly the
end users of these big boxes or office
developers,” he said.
Bogdan Cernescu
(Erste Group Immorent)
Except that most developers are
uninterested in new land, concentrating
instead on what to do with existing
projects they’ve put on hold.
However, Ingo Nissen, Sonae Sierra’s
managing director of development
for Romania, told CIJ that land prices
currently offer good investment
opportunities. “Besides the price, it’s
important to look for a dominant
location that permits a development
to fit the needs of the catchment area,”
Nissen said. But his priority at the
moment is the development of Adora
Mall in Craiova on land its bought in
2007. Work on this mall, an €111m
investment, started in June and the
company has other projects planned in
Ploiesti in Ramnicu Valcea.
Land
Erste Group Immorent is actively looking
for land acquisition opportunities, but
it’s focusing on office developments
in Bucharest. The company has built a
land bank of around 7.7 ha of land in
Romania, of which 4.4 ha is in Bucharest.
“However, the market is fairly difficult
as land prices are still high in relation
to the income generation potential of
the properties and current investment
yields,” says Bogdan Cernescu, managing
director of Erste Group Immorent
Romania. His company is working on the
planning of the first phase (50,000 sqm
GLA) of Smart Park, a mixed-use project
in Bucharest.
He says the company still has land it
plans to build retail projects on in Galati,
Romania
53
Bistrita and Bucharest along with plots
for residential schemes.
Ingo Nissen (Sonae Sierra) thinks current land prices present a good opportunity,
provided the location is right
GTC is another company with land it’s
holding on to for further developments,
“when the market demands it,” says
Shimon Galon, general manager of GTC.
GTC teams up again
for office JV
More than a decade after
entering the Romanian market, the developer GTC is planning to add
a fourth office building to its local portfolio. To be called Ana Tower, the building
takes its name from Ana Holding, a group
run by local businessman George Copos,
which will be a 50-50 partner in the project.
Shimon Galon, general manager of GTC
Romania, says the project will deliver 20
months from now, should everything run
smoothly. “We’ve been looking for some
land in the vicinity of City Gate and we
found a property, only 200 meters away,
which belongs to Ana Holding,” Galon said.
At the moment, GTC is putting together
the necessary documentation for Ana Tower and will “begin construction, hopefully,
within three to four months.” In parallel,
it’s shopping around for a bank loan. Galon
says that Ana Tower would cost €60m €70m, but wouldn’t reveal how much the
partners would put up in equity. “It all depends on negotiations with the bank, but
I don’t believe we will be able to reach
an agreement in which we put up less
than 30-35 per cent of the total cost.” The
project will not start without a bank loan,
but Galon is confident of securing the financing soon. “We already have more than
one offer,” he told CIJ.
Ana Tower will be a 26-floor skyscraper of
around 30,000 sqm GLA. The building will
be erected on a 3,500 sqm piece of land
and will benefit from an extra 5,000 sqm lot
for parking.
Galon says it’s simplistic to assume that construction prices are lower now than they
were three years ago. “Before, there used
to be more building contractors on the
market, so we had more room to negotiate.
Now there are only a few reliable constructors we can trust with a project as big as this.
So I don’t think that there has been a drastic
change in prices.”
Besides Ana Tower, GTC is scheduled to
deliver the 35,000 sqm Galleria Arad by
the end of September, which is 90 percent
leased. Gallon is planning three other malls,
of which one will be in Bucharest.
GTC’s most recent office scheme, City Gate,
was another JV scheme carried out with
Bluehouse. Completed 18 months ago,
it’s now 97 percent leased, but its sale is
currently not in the cards. “This type of
decision is taken by the parent company
in Poland, and for the time being it’s not
something to consider. Don’t forget that
City Gate is a cash machine which brings us
€12m annually,” he points out.
54
Romania
CEDER
CEDER 2011
Round-up
Leslie Warren
Leasing Director
Helios Phoenix
Has the market changed for good into
an emphasis on BTS?
Yes, the market has changed a little,
but we don’t get a lot of BTS inquiries.
It’s more of a shift from logistics to
production. Sixty percent of our inquiries
were once from 3PLs. Now it’s 60 percent
light-production companies.
Will you buy land this year? Why or
why not?
Buying land isn’t on our agenda right
now. To be honest, it’s difficult to get a
bank to fund land acquisition. With bank
funding, we can all construct industrial
parks. Without their support, it’s very
difficult.
Chris Bennett
Director
Europa Capital
Has the market changed for good into
an emphasis on BTS?
Build to suit is almost compulsory
unless one is willing to develop with
equity only, because financing for spec
development is almost impossible.
Will you buy land this year (why or
Panelists at CEDER spoke offrecord, but CIJ had some postconference questions
why not)?
We are very unlikely to buy land this
year as in present market conditions it‘s
not possible to put a value on it so there
would be great difficulty agreeing price
with the vendors. We generally will focus
on income producing property.
David A Allen
Advisor to the Chayton Capital Property
Funds
Chayton Capital LLP
Does the lack of new office supply in
the pipeline provide a significant opportunity for well-thought out projects? Or does the lack of tenant demand make it too big a risk?
Current demand is at low levels, but
there are signs of this improving in
the medium-term. In addition, from a
macro-economic perspective there are
also positive trends being noted which
would point to future positive demand
trends. These indicators, together with
the fact that any development started
today would not come to market for
at least 18 months, would lead one to
believe that there are opportunities
for well-thought out and well-located
projects.
What is the current level of investor
demand for office product? How long
would you be prepared to hang on to a
newly completed office building?
The level of demand is directly
influenced by the risk of the investment,
and issues of location and occupancy.
These issues will impact the possibility
to finance the transaction. Accordingly,
properties lower down the risk curve
have a higher demand, as long as the
expected yield is consistent with market
levels on a comparative basis. Demand
for more secondary or vacant assets
is lower but the yield differential from
primary assets is again key. The period
of holding for ourselves is governed by
the fund life, but generally we hold for 3
to 5 years.
Florin Popa
Vitalis Consulting
In Bucharest’s case, the so-called “office
space crisis” is still a paradigm of the real
estate market. I am not talking about the
lack of actual leasable square meters but
about the need for suitable locations to
provide the proper working conditions
in the light of the increasingly strict
criteria of future tenants. There are now
buildings less than 10 years old, already
well-known landmarks, having trouble
replacing tenants, while new projects are
becoming a success almost over night.
Based on the current real estate portfolio
of Bucharest, my opinion is that the wellthought office buildings will represent a
CEDER
great opportunity at least for the current
generation of investors.
Ovidiu Sandor
CEO
ModaTim Investment
David Hay
CEO
AFI Europe Romania
What shape are Romanian consumers
in? And how hard are government cutbacks and the economic recession hitting consumers?
We need to differentiate between
Bucharest and the rest of the country.
In Bucharest, where unemployment is
approximately 4 percent, it’s improving
slowly and gradually. At AFI Palace
Cotroceni shopping mall, we can see
a steady increase in retailer turnover
– almost 20 percent year-on-year.
The improvement is much slower (if
at all) elsewhere in the country. The
government cut-backs affect mainly the
public sector employees. In the private
sector the government cut backs have
less effect, though they are felt.
What
strategies
are
retailers
employing? Are they trying to take
advantage of the situation to expand,
or just trying to survive?
In our project, since turnover is up
year-on-year, and since the tenant mix is
constantly improving, retailers are quite
happy and the most successful ones are
trying to increase their spaces. In retail
projects we’re working on at the moment
(AFI Palace Ploiesti shopping mall and AFI
Palace Arad retail park), we see retailers
trying to exploit the current situation in
the market to secure favorable locations
and commercial terms.
While the lack of new office supply
is helping re-establish the balance
between demand and offer, I think new
developments need to be considered
carefully, and should be started only
if demand in that respective market
is evident. For any new development
Romania
55
with a proper concept, a well-thought
approach and a good location should be
clear prerequisites.
What is the current level of investor
demand for office product? How long
would you be prepared to hang on to a
newly completed office building?
While during 2009 and 2010 we have
seen virtually no investor interest in
Romania, this changed in 2011 and we
see the first players being much more
active in looking at properties and
placing bids. I would say this trend will
continue. In 2012, if no major world-wide
economic event changes risk perception
again, Romania should be approached
by the bigger, more institutional
investors as well.
56
Romania
Office
Offices going up at
Cotroceni
AFI Europe has begun construction on
the first building of the office component
at Palace Cotroceni. Romanian country
manager David Hay says that while he
has no tenants he can name officially,
2,500 sqm of the 11,000 sqm total is in
an advanced stage of negotiations with
a single client. The 10-storey structure
will offer an additional two levels
underground for parking.
The project illustrates the fact that while
speculative projects are definitely still the
exception in Bucharest’s pre-let universe,
developers are far more confident about
extending existing schemes. Hay is
confident the new office building will have
a relatively easy time leveraging the steady
flow of human traffic that’s already
flowing through Palace Cotroceni. The
80,000 sqm shopping center is producing
65,000 visitors per day on weekends, and
its entertainment component is arguably
the largest in Bucharest.
Rather than pioneering new
districts, AFI Europe is betting
on established locations
Robert McLean
The potential synergetic effect of
combining offices and shopping centers
is something Hay has considerable
experience with. Until recently, Hay was
running AFI Europe’s Prague operations,
where it built Palac Flora - a 20,000 sqm
shopping center along with 18,000 sqm
of retail. “It’s a good combination,” says
Hay. “You get all the office workers going
to the mall to shop for food or to the
restaurants. And then in the evening it’s
the same thing.” Larger office tenants
appreciate being able to offer their
employees these sorts of conveniences.
But Hay believes the location itself is ripe
for such a scheme. “We believe there will
be a need for new class A office buildings
in Bucharest in the next one to two years,
specifically in the center-west where
there’s currently 7 percent vacancy. Apart
from us, no new building has been started
here this year. Even today, if you’re looking
to lease a large space, you can’t find it.”
New office space will only add to the visitor numbers at the Palace Cotroceni shopping mall
As far as the shopping component of
Palace Cotroceni is concerned, Hay says
his focus is stabilizing the scheme by
increasing footfall and retailer turnover.
“Remember, we opened it in the middle
of a crisis, in November 2009, which isn’t
easy with a mall of that size. You need
one or two years of stabilization in any
shopping mall, no matter when you
open it. But especially when you open in
such difficult times.”
The developer had trouble getting
precisely the tenant mix it wanted, and
had to make due with what was possible
at the time. Since then, it’s been going
after the international retailers that
didn’t make the opening, for one reason
or another. H&M, for example, wasn’t
even in the country at the time.
Hay says AFI Europe is currently working
on a trio of new malls, located in
Arad, Ploeisti and another scheme in
Bucharest. In Ploesti, he expects the
project’s central location and lack of any
competition to provide it with a strong
position. The developer also secured
a central location in Arad it felt was
ideal for a mall, but it lost the race to
the competing scheme Atrium, located
practically next door to it.
The company‘s solution is to build a
retail park instead, taking advantage
of (and adding to) the traffic created
by Atrium while providing a different
sort of retail offering. “If you have a
hypermarket, a DIY store and sports,
then there’s no way you won’t succeed,”
claims Hay.
encompassme
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58
slovakia
Investment
HB Reavis launches
fund
HB Reavis has been busy picking up new
projects in Poland in 2011, which is no
easy task in such a competitive market.
Now, in what looks like the second
phase of its CEE expansion strategy, the
Slovak property company HB Reavis
has launched a €165m real estate fund
that will focus on assets in the core CE
markets.
Creating its own fund is the
next phase in the developer‘s
regional expansion
Robert McLean
the EU average,” he says.
“We therefore believe the time is right
for us to launch a new business line of
real estate investment management.
One of HB Reavis’s Aupark malls will be placed in the new fund
It’s seeding the fund with five of its
properties: two Bratislava office blocks,
one of its Auparks and a pair of logistics
parks. This provides a certain level of
sector diversification and the company
offering 7 year principal protection as
well. HB Reavis hopes to raise €100m in
equity commitments and estimates it will
provide 11 percent returns (50 percent of
which is to be distributed). Spokesman
Roman Karabelli says the timing is right
for such a move. “We see a post-crisis
come-back of commercial properties,
while the economies of core CE countries
are expected to achieve growth above
3nity gets 2nd
chance
Construction on Tower B
has gotten underway at
3nity LifeStyle Residence, as it appears
that the developer Vara Group is ready
to re-start the project. Development of
the complex stalled after completion of
the foundation and underground works,
as the financial crisis killed off demand in
Bratislava’s residential market. Completion of this first tower, which is planned
to stand between two subesequent structures, should take place at the end of the
Our management company is regulated
by the Luxembourg authorities and the
management team has experience with
management of private equity funds in
the UK.”
year. In all, 154 flats are planned in the 87.6
meter building. In addition, 8,000 sqm of
retail and entertainment is planned, along
with 4,500 sqm of offices.
“To ensure easy access to the commercial
businesses in the entertainment portion
of the project, the first four floors of towers B and C have already been built,” says
Marianna Zahradnícková, Vara Group’s
marketing manager. “Residents of block A,
tenants in the office space as well as visitors will be able to use the services in the
building by the end of the year.”
The CIJ Awards event in CEE just got even more exciting
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Organizer
60
slovakia
Residential
Residential’s rebirth
in Bratislava
A year ago, Bratislava’s residential market
was starting to shake off the cobwebs
of a financial crisis that had sent it to its
knees. Sales were starting up again in
some projects, but the “recovery”, as it
were, was still far too fragile and young to
be taken seriously. Still sales continued to
recover in the second half of the year, and
a greater sense of confidence was evident
from developers, agencies and banks.
As we head into the traditionally slow
summer season, the vibe is substantially
more positive. There’s robust confidence
that sensibly-priced flats in the Slovak
capital have a good chance of selling.
One of the main drivers of this re-birth
of hope, says Miroslav Barnáš, head of
Jones Lang LaSalle’s Bratislava office, is
a reduction in price. The average asking
price per square meter in the first quarter
of 2010 was €2,100. That’s now €1,900.
“And the average price of sold apartments
is around €1,700 to €1,800 per sqm. That’s
where the market is today.”
Filip Žoldak, a founding partner at the
recently created residential agency
Herrys, agrees that price cuts have made
a big difference. “They’ve motivated
people to buy,” he says. “There are more
and more compromises on both sides,
from clients and from developers. The
developers want and need to sell and
buyers want to buy.”
So eager are consumers to buy, he claims,
that the pace of sales doubled in Q1 2011
compared to the same period in 2010. “In
the first three months of 2010, there were
It’s not a boom, but sales are
up, as is the confidence of the
stronger residential developers
Robert McLean
350 sales. This year, there were nearly
700.”
But falling prices is only one ingredient
in a mix of factors that are turning the
tide, albeit slowly, in favor of developers.
The first is a general level of economic
optimism that’s crawled back into
the thinking of many Slovaks. They’re
not getting rich just yet, but despite
persistently high unemployment
numbers, a return to mild GDP growth
seems to have soothed the job security
jitters of many.
More importantly, however, the banks
appear to be trying to do their part to
get unsold residential projects off their
balance sheets. Žoldak says that not
only are two or three banks offering 100
percent loans possible again, but they’re
being offered at interest rates as low as
3.5 percent. Consumers seem to have
concluded that those kinds of rates are
unlikely to stay so low very long, and
there’s no guarantee they’ll ever come
back. So the number of projects where
flats are selling has expanded as well, he
says.
The final piece of the residential puzzle, of
course, is supply, and this too has finally
swung in favor of developers. Just as the
pace of sales of flats gradually ramped
up over the past year, the pipeline of new
projects has dwindled. So while there’s
still a considerable amount of product
still on the market, there’s not much
prospect of it being replaced as quickly as
it disappears.
Miroslav Barnáš
“There are 2,900 new apartments still
available,” says Barnáš. “Of those, 50
percent are being completed at the
moment.” A year ago, the number was
roughly 1,000 units higher. Over time,
healthy demand and a lack of new supply
points to one possible outcome: higher
prices.
Barnáš and Žoldak agree that the days
of the huge apartment are over, at least
for now. “Around 75 sqm, that’s the liquid
product,” says Barnáš.
Žoldak says that one of the more
surprising changes brought on by the
crisis has been the attitude of developers
to “outside” advice. “They’re listening
more to agents and to the people who
really deal with the apartments,” he says.
“Before, the comment we got was always
‘it’s my money so don’t tell me anything
I will do it the way I want to.’ Everyone
who had money in Bratislava thought
they could be a developer. Today, the
real developers have remained, but the
rest of them have returned to their core
businesses.”
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62
slovakia
Q&A
Hajdu: Focus
shifting to
commercial
How have developers changed their approach to residential projects?
They changed their mind, their approach, they’re trying to re-set up
their projects based on the demand of the market.
They weren’t doing that before the crisis?
Before, I think no one was thinking so much what the market really
wanted because the market basically absorbed almost everything.
There was no need to do market studies or feasibility stories. Now they
see that people want residential only some types of layout of the flat of
the apartment, only some average sqm, people don’t want to pay for
large territories. They don’t need it and they aren’t willing to pay a lot of
money for it. So they re-thought their project and they’re coming to the
market with projects that reflect this need.
Projects are smaller as well, aren’t they?
They understand it’s not easy to sell a lot of flats at once, so they started
to divide the projects into phases. That makes it much easier to do the
pre-sale. Selling 20 to 30 percent of 50 flats is quite different than trying
to do that with 500 units. It may have some impact on the cost side and
the margin may be reduced a bit, but I don’t see it dramatically and it
gives more comfort to both sides.
But that’s true on the lending side as well. It’s the same amount of
work for less money.
It’s true, it’s less efficient for us, so we have to do more, smaller projects.
But the truth is that we see residential development as not the most important in our portfolio, so we’re not focused on growing in residential
development. There was a time when we had over 50 percent of our
portfolio in residential, but today it should be more like 20 percent. Our
strategy is more focused on shopping centers and office centers, and in
build-to-suit logistics.
There are roughly 2,500 flats under construction or for sale in Bratislava. Is that a big number?
I don’t think it’s a big number. What I see as crucial, is we should talk
about how many of these are flats that are wanted by the market. If this
number is very small, then it’s a problem, and I think that’s the situation.
I think a lot of these flats are too large, meaning the price is too high,
even if the price per sqm is fine. Do you need a two-room flat with 100
sqm? No, it’s too much, but you have to pay for each square meter. Then
Pavol Hajdu (VÚB) says old
residential projects need to look
out for new ones
layout. As far as I know it’s not easy to find a suitable flat. It’s not easy. But
it’s probably a question of price.
But there are new developments starting now. You’re financing
some of them. They’re going to be difficult competition for existing developments, aren’t they?
They’re a threat for the existing ones, because the new ones being developed now are going to have better layouts, better areas, and lower
prices. This is the danger for them.
So, there’s not much in the pipeline, and relatively uncompetitive
existing stock. That will encourage you to lend to developers on
new, more competitive projects.
Those who have land for a good price and can build at a good price can
do well. People need to live somewhere and there’s a real need for flats
for young families. I think developers should be optimistic but they really have to structure a good project.
If people bought land in 2007, they probably paid too much, right?
They probably did. But if they write off some of the loss, then they can
still have a good project. I would accept only the realistic value of the
land. That’s what I’d count as equity, not necessarily what they paid.
And then you’ll give them how much?
Around 60 – 70 percent loan-to-cost, in combination with around 20
– 30 percent pre-sale. Then it depends on the location. If it’s a great location, and I’m sure it will sell, we’re more likely to accept 20 percent. If it’s
a normal location, then closer to 30 percent.
The dilemma for banks is that they have clients with flats they can’t
sell. So when banks finance strong, new projects, they’re creating
competition for their existing clients. What do you recommend
your existing clients do? And do they listen?
We advise them to lower their prices. Sometimes it’s successful and
sometimes it isn’t. Some of them come to us to ask if they can lower the
price (the original agreement didn’t allow them to go below a certain
level) accepting that they’ll have to make some write-off on their equity
in order to minimize their losses. I think most of them realize that just
waiting isn’t a solution.
As for us, if we don’t finance new projects, other banks will. So we can’t
help our clients by not financing new developments. And if we finance
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Regional
64
Marketing Q&A
3 Questions,
3 Answers:
PR, Marketing or Personal,
tell me the truth.
CIJ surveys some of CEE‘s most
prominent marketing specialists
in CEE about everything from
job satisfaction, to travel plans,
to secret weapons
Is the car you‘re driving worth more
than CZK 100,000?
I am registered as an owner of a 1977 Alfa
Romeo Spider, but I don’t really drive it as I
bought it as a present.
Edina Mago
Marcela Veselá
What’s the best thing about being in
marketing?
What I like about being a marketing expert
is that I get to know about all the parts of
the company: sales, finance, development,
property management and so on. I can be
of help to everyone, and all of the sectors
can count on me.
Where were you 3 hours ago?
Three hours ago I was walking our black
Labrador, Monty, and smooth collie puppy,
Barnabáš, by the river enjoying the fresh
breeze and views of Prague castle – also
trying to stop them stealing bread that
people were giving to the swans!
Marketing Manager
AIG/Lincoln
Hungary
What’s the next trip you are going to
take?
I have two dream destinations: Southern
Italy, alone with my husband. This trip will
definitely happen this autumn. The second
trip we’re planning is a week in Turkey, on
the beach, with my two sons. Maybe this
summer…
Are you someone’s best friend?
Fortunately, yes! And by chance, she is a
colleague of mine. Although we sometimes
have professional debates, it doesn’t influence our private friendship. When we speak
about kids nothing else matters.
Marketing & Public Relations
CB Richard Ellis
Czech Republic
Are you rich? Do you plan to be someday?
Not yet – working on it! But one day I wish
to be rich, run a charity and help all those
poor children, old people and dogs...I’d
start by buying Troja Dog Shelter! Yes, I
know, it’s quite naïve.
I have known Heli Hurabova (Office Agent
at CBRE) for many years and we regularly
talk about life, work, and real estate over a
cigarette and Starbucks coffee. Although
you should probably ask my friends if they
consider me to be their best friend.
Head of Marketing Department
CAELUM DEVELOPMENT
Poland
You ought to ask the people I consider
friends that question, but I think so. There
are definitely people who can count on me
day and night.
When’s the last time you got stopped by
a cop or pulled over?
I have to admit that I’ve been stopped for
speeding. The last time was in August. Since
then I’ve been trying to be more cautious
while driving, and to listen to the CB radio
more carefully.
Marketing Q&A
What’s the best being in being in marketing?
An opportunity to create new ideas and implement them. I follow the rule: the sky’s the
limit, or not even that!
What’s the hardest thing about being in
marketing?
Facing up to the reality that there’s a common belief that anyone can do marketing.
What’s your favorite wine?
I don’t drink wine, but I do have a favorite
aperitif – campare with grapefruit juice.
They say that it’s no longer in fashion, but it
tastes wonderful – especially in the summer.
If you could choose any city to live in for
two years, where would that be?
My biggest dream is to work in New York
City, I would also like to settle in London.
What’s the last book you started but
didn’t finish?
I’m addicted to reading, so it’s never happened that I wouldn’t finish a book. Recently,
I read Blood Vines by Erica Spindler, currently
I’m in the middle of David Baldacci’s Stone
Cold.
regional
65
there for two years and I would love to go
back to settle again in Surrey Quays and
work in the City. If I had to choose not to
work, only living, I would say United States,
Los Angeles perhaps, maybe a sleepy place
like Dallas, or some happy island like St. Lucia.
What’s the last book you started and
didn’t finish?
Unfortunately, there’s too many of them –
last one is ‘Kod Brytania’.
Name one non-work related goal
I would like to raise my children to be happy,
wise and fulfilled people.
Paulina Krasnopolska
Aneta Mandziuk
Senior Marketing & PR Specialist
CB Richard Ellis
Poland
take?
I’ll spend my holidays in Munich, visiting Bavaria, and like every year, I will be relaxing in
my home region of Mazury.
marketing?
The thing I value the most in marketing is
having direct contact with clients and media. Most enjoyable part of my work is arranging events for clients and employees.
Marketing and PR Director
CB Richard Ellis Polska
Poland
take?
My family and I planning to go to Jastatnia, Jurata, and a tiny village Brajniki of
Mazury.
marketing?
Being in direct contact with customers, journalists, advertising agencies and graphics
studios. In general, contact with people is
the best part of my work.
two years, where would it be?
I’d have to say London. I lived and worked
Boldizsar Horvath
Senior Associate Marketing
Colliers International
Hungary
I believe so, yes. We have been best friends
for more than 10 years now. I think it is rather exceptional, fortunate and it feels great,
that we are best friends of each other. But
this is just a reason of many why our friendship will last forever.
What does your last text message say?
It’s a thank you note for my father, who
bought me a nice T-shirt for my birthday.
When I got home from our dinner together
66
Regional
Marketing Q&A
I tried the T-shirt on and it fits perfectly. So,
I sent him the great news that he guessed
my size right, and thanked him again for the
evening.
marketing?
It is a tough one to find just one thing. Probably the best thing is that I can be completely
myself in the job I am doing. I can use and
add my whole personality to the colorful
challenges and tasks which are rarely the
same. This ensures that I never get bored in
what I am doing. It is always challenging to
understand the clients’ current needs and
providing them the best solution for their
current problem or task.
The most important thing is balance. I stick
to this rule.
Chilled, with a gentle nutty flavor / delicate
hint of / gentle tone of / hazelnut, perfect
with poultry, cheese and other appetizers.
What’s the last book you started, but
didn’t finish?
Woody Allen – Conversation with Woody Allen.
Orsolya Nemeth
Marketing and PR Manager
Cushman & Wakefield
Hungary
Yes, I hope so. I met my best friend in elementary school 18 years ago. I think our relationship is special, and besides my very close
family and husband she is my one and only
best friend and hopefully I am hers as well.
Petra Kamešová
Head of Reception, Marketing
CTP
Czech Republic
Magda Cieliczko
Director / CEE Marketing
Colliers International
Poland
I’m incredibly rich and still planning to be
even more… spiritually of course
Do you collect anything?
Smiles
What brand do you respect the most?
My own.
Does your career get in the way of your
social life?
If you could choose any city to live in
for two years, where would it be?
Before I met my husband I planned to go
to Spain. No particular city, I just love the
Spanish language, culture, food and I
wanted to learn some more from inside…
the dream ended up with learning a few
sentences during my stay in England, unfortunately. Maybe one day…
To finish my house and have one of those
beautiful gardens you see in magazines
where I could just relax. Reality seems like
it will take forever, though, so once it’s done
we’ll start working on repairs.
I collect everything, that has a ladybird on
it. I have all different kinds of boxes, stickers,
erasers, chocolate, key rings, wooden ladybirds in every size etc.
marketing?
The best thing about working with marketing is that I am involved in the work of all departments within the company. I like organizing and coordinating things, I like doing PR
activities and dealing with charity issues. It
always makes me happy to help other people and to see the reactions.
Cushman & Wakefield. It is strong, unique,
representing expertise and quality.
A good friend of mine showed me a semi-dry
Marketing Q&A
white wine from Tokajicum winery called
Muscat Lunel. Although I only like dry white
wines, this one is really tasty, fruity and light.
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67
Yes. Well, most of the time. The older one
gets the less cautious one becomes.
It has to be Spanish Red Rioja Reserva from
2001: Rich, full body, full of passion and
hangover free!
Mgr. Petra Kopecká
PR Manager, Spokesperson
FINEP CZ
Czech Republic
Nati Cucalon
Marketing Manager Europe
EC Harris
United Kingdom
Are you someone’s best friend? Of course. Isn’t everybody?
marketing?
I’d say understanding getting to know the
cultural and social intricacies of each European country to ensure that marketing campaigns are totally tailored to the right target
audience. Having said that, engaging with
translations, different symbols, accents, etc,
of 11 countries in Europe for EC Harris has
brought a new dimension to my role!!
I like the English television channel BBC: unpretentious, quality focused, creative, loyal
and with no adverts….like me.
Who knows your secret weapon?
No one should ever know your secret weapon. They can guess it but they’ll never know
for certain.
Do you always speak your mind?
Zsuzsanna Báthori
Marketing coordinator
ESTON International
Hungary
Buttons. You never know when they’ll be
needed.
marketing?
Free-of-charge movie tickets. Seriously,
though, it’s not only a job but for me it’s fun,
too: creating, shaping, managing and raising a company’s communication and products just as if they were your children.
Somewhere at Worthersee (Austria) – sun
& hills, clear air, fresh water, nice food, no
work.
didn’t finish?
Rejtő Jenő: A néma revolverek városa (P.
Howard: City of silent revolvers)
Where were you 3 hours ago? Between fields, walking with my dog and
shouting at him to leave the rabbit alone!
Who won? The rabbit of course!
I am a very rich person already. I have loving parents and brother, lovely boyfriend, a
small car, a nice house, a fabulous dog, several good friends, quiet neighbors, good job,
some money in the bank, strong health and
many, many happy days in peace...
Penfolds, Rawsons´Retreat, Shiraz Cabernet, 2008. Absolute ecstasy with a really big
piece of steak!
UNICEF. Because it is not just a brand...
Get recognized
68
Regional
Marketing Q&A
Irina Gheorghe
Majella O Doherty
Do you collect anything? Travel guides, maps and postcards of the
places that I visit.
Last time you got stopped by a cop or
pulled over??
About two years ago on a very hot May evening in Brussels I got slightly lost due to road
works and tried to maneuver a sneaky u-turn
in order to get back on track. I wasn’t sneaky
enough because I was caught immediately.
Thankfully, I was let off with a warning
Marketing Manager
Gardiner & Theobald
Romania
take? I don’t know if it’s the next trip I’ll take, but
I recently saw a friend’s album from a trip
to the Amalfi Coast – great photos, I would
like to see the region in the future.
marketing?
Innovating, anticipating the trends, and
being able to cater to them as a company.
What’s the hardest thing?
Slicing the bigger picture.
Apple (and Steve Jobs), for the vision and
innovation with which they do things differently, as well as for the simplicity/functionality of their design.
New York – I spent a summer there when I
was in university and have always wanted
to go back.
Communications Manager
Goodman Europe
Belgium
Who is the biggest gossiper you know??
If I told you that, would it make me an even
bigger gossip?
Next trip you are going to take??
My next trip will be to Dublin for two nights
to catch up with some friends that I haven’t
seen in a few years. It will be a mix of long
lunches and dinners with lots of chatting,
and hopefully I will get to fit in some shopping. I can’t wait!
marketing?
The diversity. Every project or campaign is
different, so there are many opportunities to
be creative. It’s always satisfying to see the
evolution of a project.
New York.
Edina Nagy
Director
Marketing & Research
GVA Robertson
Hungary
What does your last text message say?
“Are you an engineer?”
Experiences which are good to remember.
marketing?
I like its complexity: some creativity, some
organization, some communication, some
planning, some finance, and so on.
I respect a lot of brands but there is one brand
which I know quite well and use their services
a lot and that is Google. I like their story.
In Italy. Rome or Florence.
Get remembered
Marketing Q&A
Adrienn Erdelyi
Nika Frouzová
Are you someone’s best friend? I’m lucky to be able to say that there are
more best friends in my life. My two sisters
aren’t just only sisters but also best friends.
Age-wise we are very close to each other,
grew up together and have a lot of common experiences. Also, my best friends
have lasted formany years now. It’s funny
that all of them started at one of my previous employments.
What does your last text message say? :))))
Project Developer
HOCHTIEF Development Hungary
Hungary
What’s the next trip you‘re planning
to take? At the end of June I will travel to Malta to
spend for a really nice time. I’m going with
a friend who works there, so some local
guiding is ensured. We’ll probably go to all
the historic places, be amazed by the nature and will relax on the beach as much as
we can.
If I had learned French properly, I would
definitely choose Paris. It’s one of my favorite European city and probably the only
one destination that I can’t get enough
of. Paris has many faces and I always find
something new in it.
Head of PR and Marketing
Jones Lang LaSalle
Czech Republic
Do you collect anything? I collect diamonds, but so far my collection
is very modest.
take? A surprise long weekend. I have no idea
where I am going but I am very excited
about it. It is all very mysterious…
Brands that speak for themselves. Brands
that don’t need to lie in advertisements.
If someone knows, they should tell me, so I
can start using it.
Yes, unfortunately.
Get profiled
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69
Aneta Parzuchowska
Head of Marketing CEE & SEE,
Associate Director
Jones Lang LaSalle
Poland
Are you rich? Do you plan to be some day?
Benjamin Franklin used to say “Who is rich?
He that is content. Who is that? Nobody.”
Therefore I work hard to be content and if
by the way I become rich, then it would be a
nice side effect.
Who is the biggest gossiper you know?
If I had answered this question, it would
have been me.
What’s the best being in being in marketing?
From my point of view it’s an opportunity to
express creativity.
What’s the last book you started and
didn’t finish?
Actually, there are three books I started reading at the same time but I haven’t managed
to finish any of them yet. These are: Jürgen
Thorwald “A Fragile House of Soul” (history
of the neurosurgery), Niccolò Machiavelli
“The Prince” and “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu.
It’s a strange combination but I have always
preferred popular science to literature.
My own. It is called Reputation.
70
Regional
Marketing Q&A
saw right after I finished university. I knew
this city provides possibilities and chances
for development and I was right about
that. However, if I had to choose, I would
say London or Paris. Those are the cities
where you can’t get bored.
Do you have a car worth over PLN
8,000?
Yes and no. I have a Reno Clio Williams,
looking at its market price the car is worth
less than that but it’s unique to me and has
a sentimental value that’s way above its selling price.
Kamilia Kowalska
Marketing & Communication Specialist
Liebrecht & WooD Poland
Poland
It’s an ambiguous question. Wealth has its
material and spiritual side. I believe both
are important, because material well-being
makes possible self-education and fulfilling
our dreams. I consider myself more spiritually rich for now, but I’m slowly starting to
collect material goods as well, such as a
plot under the home I’ve dreamed of. We’ll
just have to wait and see what comes next.
social life, or vice versa?
I had some problems with it at the beginning, so I realized a few times that I spend
three quarters of my day working. I begun
to changing my attitude, and I think I succeeded. One day you begin to understand,
that without time for yourself, without
sports, hobby or meet your friends you lose
much more, then you think. As it happens,
I’m expecting the baby as we speak and I’m
hoping that this experience will also enrich
me.
I consider myself an urban creature. I like
big cities, that’s why I set of to conquer War-
Ewa Rasińska
Senior Marketing Manager
Business Administration
King Sturge
Poland
For hot summer days, especially in the garden with friends, my favorite wine is chilled,
crisp Chablis. This wine is very refreshing
and goes well with all kinds of grilled dishes. On the other hand on the cold winter
evenings curled up on the couch under a
blanket with a good book I prefer to drink
Australian Shiraz, which is soft, warm and
fruity.
didn’t finish?
“The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini, is
the story of a young boy from Kabul, who
lives through dramatic events in Afghanistan history. I started reading it right after
reading “A Thousand Splendid Suns” by the
same author, which showed the hard life
in Afghanistan but from the perspective of
two women.
Eszter Pajor
Personal Assistant
Investment
(Marketing)
King Sturge
Hungary
What does your last text message say? ‘I know, raincoat, chatted with mum and
your boy. I am very very glad!!!!! Tomorrow.
Xxx’
(It was sent to my sister, who was in the
hospital after undergoing surgery, which
was fortunately successful. The part about
te the raincoat, does not have any relevance, it was changed by Apple predictive
services)
Do you collect anything? Hugs and experience.
Tarrant Hightopp (aka Mad Hatter), from
Alice in Wonderland.
Marketing Q&A
Anita Pietrykowska
Member of the Management Board
(Marketing)
MLP Group
Poland
Where were you three hours ago?
In my car, on my way to work. I had the pleasure of getting stuck in a traffic jam in a crowd
of millions. I guess we all are familiar with that.
Marketing & PR Manager
Panattoni Europe
Poland
marketing?
Overcoming standardized approaches and
providing a new way to look at a worn-out
topic, as well as the lack of monotony and
an opportunity to create...
What does your last text message says ?
“Please, sit down, make yourself comfortable and breathe! You’ve gotten the golden
text message! PLN 100,000 is within your
reach! Send back this message…”
Measuring the effects of your work
No one. If someone knew about it, it wouldn’t
be secret. There are only people who guess
how it works.
In most cases I do, but it doesn’t always pay
off
Dolce vita
Unique experiences – a true rarity.
Are you somebody’s best friend?
Time and distance have shown, that I’m
happy to be one.
Get it out there
regional
71
Šárka Štěpánková
Group PR & Marketing Manager
PointPark Properties
Czech Republic
Do you collect anything? I collect books by Agatha Christie. Not just
the crime fiction we all know, but also short
stories, travel books, her autobiography,
books she wrote under the pseudonym
Mary Westmacott and poems, which very
few people know about. She’s still one of the
most translated authors in the world and
who was full of optimism till the last moments of her life is a great inspiration for me.
She never gave up anything. And honestly –
she always catches me!
What‘s the next trip you‘re planning to
take? Norway. I am ready to catch a plane to my
favorite Scandinavian country anytime!
Sailing in the middle of the fjords, walking around crystal clear lakes, eating fresh
shrimp in the port restaurant – it’s unforgettable. The relaxed way Norwegians live and
their optimism is admirable. Every trip to the
north charges me up with new energy.
Oslo. I’ve been there many times and I still
love the town. I never get bored there. So
many interesting places to go and visit but
72
Regional
Marketing Q&A
also you can just sit on the Aker Brygge, smell
the sea, eat fresh fish and enjoy the sunset. I
feel free there. After a few days in Oslo, I have
the feeling I can do anything in the world.
energy to understand the Quran first to be
able to figure out all these symbols used in
this book. But who knows – perhaps in the
future...
Dry red – Amarone.
ness offers. And offers in general. But that
comes with the job, and it’s a small price to
pay compared to all other good things.
It is pretty difficult to choose one brand.
However, I can say I admire IKEA a lot, because it’s not just a brand, but also a concept and life-style.
My favorite wines are Madeira and Porto.
They are strong and sweet at the same
time, and have that special flavor.
Marta Tęsiorowska,
Vice President,
Marketing & Communications CEE
Prologis
Poland
What will your next travel destination
be?
As a natural born traveler, next time I will
go to… Portugal, of course. It’s my favorite
destination and I always feel relaxed there. I
love the climate, the Iberian cuisine and the
mentality – especially in Algarve – because
of their enthusiasm, openness and friendliness. Portuguese landscapes never fail
to impress me – the sights are what I miss
most. I also look for the tastes of this country in restaurants in Warsaw. I prefer those
where I can have caldeirada or bacalhau.
didn’t finish?
Basically, I finish any book I start. And I
read quite a lot – one book a day – when
I’m not at work. But I tried to read The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie once and I
had to give up. To understand the novel, I
would have had to spend a lot of time and
Iulia Enescu
Public Affairs Coordinator
Business Development and Marketing
Salans - Moore si Asociatii SCA
Romania
What‘s the next trip you’re planning to
take? My next trip will be in Santander, the capital of Cantabria province in northern Spain.
I chose it due to its location, as I am in love
with the Atlantic Ocean. It’s also a less a less
mass-tourism destination.
marketing?
For me, the best thing about being in marketing is that the job keeps you in a permanent state of alert (in the good sense of
the word). You can’t afford to fall behind
and you have to be able to identify market
trends as they happen.
The hardest thing is (sometimes) to manage the huge flow of information and busi-
Monika Szlaga
Marketing & Administrating Assistant
Portico Investment
Poland
Where were you three hours ago?
On my way to the office, in a crowded train,
thinking if the misery of the people commuting is ever going to end.
I’m planning to be happy and fulfilled. If circumstances are favorable, I wouldn’t rule
out getting rich. I’m not on the “Forbes” list
so far, but who knows, maybe some day.
Not just for anyone, but for unique people. I
appreciate friendship, it allows allows you to
be free to express yourself and to be at ease
with someone.
Marketing Q&A
I’m sure it sounds like a cliché, but I honestly
wish I had more time for reading. My day is
often unpredictable and sometimes I struggle just to get a few hours in the evening and
go to the park with my daughter. The book
I currently have on my night table is called
“Cartea Soaptelor” (The Book of Whispers)
written by Varujan Vosganian. It’s very interesting but I just didn’t give it enough time.
Nicole Sommer
Business Development Consultant.
(Marketing)
WSP Group
Romania
social life, or vice versa?
Honestly, I never thought of it this way. My
job is all about meeting people, making and
building relationships and most of the time
I get the chance to get to know the person
behind the professional. I’ve been lucky to
meet some wonderful people in real estate
and some of them have become my friends
whom I see socially. So, my social life goes
hand in hand with my career.
With no hesitation I would choose London. I
think it’s the number one city for business in
Europe. It’s true that London life is grey, wet
and cold in more ways than one, but for the
locals, there is a color and a warmth to life in
the UK capital that’s hard to find elsewhere.
By 9:00 a.m. in London every street, bridge,
office, newspaper stand, clothes store, station, coffee shop and link to the Internet is in
full force. You can really feel the speed and
the energy.
didn’t finish?
That’s a tricky one – I think true honesty is
not to say what you think but to think what
you say. Because you can speak your mind
in so many different ways and if you choose
your words carefully, both in your personal
and professional life, the people around you
will value your honesty and will not be hurt
by bluntness. I think people consider you
honest when they know that your word is
your bond. Do what you say and say what
you do. Walk the talk!
regional
73
speak on the phone every other week, or
see each other once a month we can always
count on one another. Having a best friend
in this day and age is something I consider
a privilege.
I kind of have the habit of speaking my
mind, although this usually bothers people.
When it comes to family and friends I always
do, and they know it and love me for this. If
it’s work related, I sometimes think before
letting it out, I have to take into consideration the consequences as well. But if I know I
am right I never hold back.
Advertise
in the No.1 read
magazine in CEE
Ira Potcoava
Marketing Manager
Liebrecht & wooD Romania
Romania
I am proud to say that I am someone’s
best friend, and I consider her as well to be
my best friend. We’ve been through a lot of
things together and even though we only
74
REGIONAL
Events
Prologis
Prologis organized a cocktail partyfor its business partners in Prague’s U Prince terraces in early June. Seventy guests arrived to enjoy
the location’s beautiful view of the Old Town Square on a summer evening.
Martin Polák right (Prologis) with guests
Czech Team: František Gregor, Tomáš Beránek, Šárka
Ptáčková, Lukáš Vostrovský, Robert Bocker, Petr
Markvart and Jan Voslář
swedecenter
SwedeCenter laid the cornerstone for
Business Garden Warsaw on June 2. It’s
the first of a trio of green business parks
envisioned in Poznan, Wroclaw and
Warsaw that will provide 300,000 sqm
of prime office space while focusing on
environmental sustainability.
Marta Tesiorowska center (Prologis) with guests
Šárka Ptáčková kissing her trophy
Cushman & Wakefield
The European C&W Volleyball tournament held at Wembley Stadium in London in mid-June, featuring teams
from all Europe. Prague’s office, for example, was represented by seven staff. Šárka Ptácková, assistant to CMG
and Hospitality teams, represented the C&W Prague office as captain of the winning women’s team.
The ČEZ Group team in action
The winning team, made up of ČEZ Group
employees
Henryk Liszka (Hochtief Polska) and Roger
Andersson (SwedeCenter)
passerinvest
PasserInvest held the 11th “BB Centrum Cup 2011” in early June for tenants of the BB Centrum office park in
Prague 4. Other participants in the
tournament included Hewlett-Packard, ROSS, HUAWEJ, the CEZ Group
and Balance Club Brumlovka.
Česká spořitelna
For Česká spořitelna’s “Day for Charity”
program, employees are given two
working days to take part in projects
for charities that benefit the community or the needy. In 2010, 1,655 of its
employees took advantage of this opportunity.
Appointments
REGIONAL
75
Ian
Elliot
Colliers International has appointed Ian Elliot as its retail business development director for Eastern
Europe. Ian will be focusing on the markets in Belarus, Poland, Russia and Ukraine and will be responsible
for introducing and winning retail agency and property management business. Ian has 30 years of retail
experience, having headed projects throughout Europe. Prior to joining Colliers he worked as associate
director in Southern Europe for CBRE.
CB Richard Ellis has taken Jan Kratochvíl on board to join its tenant representation and global corporate
services team as associate director. Prior to joining CBRE Jan has worked for its competitor – Knight Frank
for ten years. Jan graduated from the pedagogical Faculty in Hradec Králové. He is fluent in English and
Russian.
Jan
Kratochvíl
Martin
Kele
Martin Kele has taken on the new post of director of operations on the PointPark Properties (P3)
corporate team. He will be responsible for the coordination of internal activities at P3. Martin comes to P3
via Citibank, where he worked in the front office as a relationship manager for corporate clients and in the
back office as the documentation unit head and business unit manager. In his position he was responsible
for corporate operations in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Bulgaria.
Graham MacMillan has been promoted to director and to the position of coordinator of CEE valuations
in CB Richard Ellis. Graham will continue in his role as head of valuation in Hungary, and at the same time
he will coordinate CBRE’s valuation departments throughout the region. Graham will focus mainly on
cross-border valuation, including large portfolios and regional banking clients. Originally from Scotland,
he joined CB Richard Ellis Hungary as a senior valuer in June 2008 and was promoted to head of valuation
in June 2009.
Graham
MacMillan
Andrew G.
Sandor
Squire Sanders has welcomed Andrew G. Sandor back to its Budapest office. Andrew focuses his
practice on corporate matters including private equity, mergers and acquisitions, real estate and
corporate finance. He’s rejoining Squire Sanders having been a senior associate in the company’s
Bratislava office from 2003 to 2008. Since 2008, he’d been working as dedicated outside counsel to
Royalton Partners.
Squire Sanders has also appointed Lajos Wallacher as a senior associate in its Budapest office. A former
vice president of the Hungarian Competition Authority, Lajos specializes in competition law, merger control,
restrictive agreements regulations and dominant position practices. He’s taught classes at several universities
on legal subjects including European Union law, competition law and legal proceedings.
Lajos
Wallacher
Drinks before home
Zsuzsanna Sarkozy (RPMG), Balázs Lohn
(Lohn Law Firm), Liam Crow (Capital Growth
Solutions) and Dalma Mózes (RPMG)
Robert Fletcher, Robert McLean (RPMG)
and Ian Elliott (Colliers International)
Valeriu Petrescu and Adrian Balasu
(Building Support Services)
Lóránt Kibédi Varga (CBS Property) and
Adrienne Konthur (CB Richard Ellis)
Jake Lodge (Axa Reim) and Ben
Perez Ellichewitz (JLL)
Adrienne Konthur and Tim
O’Sullivan (CB Richard Ellis)
Robert Fletcher (RPMG) and
Andrew Jackson (First Title)
Damian Niedzielski and Renata
Osiecka (Axi Immo Group)
Paweł Zawadzki, Brian Burgess (Savills)
and Marek Krajewski (Ghelamco)
Radosław Ignasiak, Beata Hryniewska (Jones Lang
LaSalle) and Tomasz Oborski (Axi Immo Group)
Tomasz Ożdziński (PricewaterhouseCoopers)
and Ida Stankiewicz (Jones Lang LaSalle)
Paul Lannoye (Atenor Group) and
Leslie Warren (Helios Phoenix)
Rodica Tarcavu (DTZ Echinox) and
Stephen Burke (Cefin Real Estate)
Mihaela Nichitelea, Carmen Grigore,
Cristina Barbuceanu and Cristi
Gavrila (Vitalis Consulting)
Radu Petre Nastase (Adest Architecture)
and Sven Lemmes (AIG Lincoln)
DBH
We’d like to thank all the sponsors of DBH for their support during these turbulent times, as
it’s created a monthly meeting point that is sorely needed in today’s marketplace.
REGIONAL
77
DBH Calendar 2011
Hungary
June 2
September 1
Katalin Honi (DTZ), Dávid Honi (DTZ)
and Zoltán Lehoczky (STRABAG)
Dávid Honi(DTZ) and Balázs
Lohn (Lohn Law Firm)
Lóránt Kibédi Varga (CBS Property)
October
November
December
Graham MacMillan(CB Richard Ellis)
and Viktória Magyar (King Sturge)
Tamás Sellyey (Indotek) and
Gábor Onczay(DTZ)
Szilvia Kabacs (Kinstellar), Liam
Crow (Capital Growth Solutions
Ltd.) and Tom Kimber (KPMG)
Supporting
partner 2011
Poland
May 19
Beata Nowakowska and
Dariusz Wypyski (XPLAN)
Marcin Purgal, Małgorzata
Gadomska (Savills) and Colin
Waddell (CB Richard Ellis)
Ola Biesiadecka, Tomasz
Kasperowicz and Krzysztof
Kienorow (Colliers International)
June 15
September 15
October 20
November 17
Emilia Szyszka, Marta Tęsiorowska
(Prologis), Marek Skrzydlak
(Cushman & Wakefield) and
Luiza Wasiuk (CB Richard Ellis)
Philip Evison (Evison & Co)
and David Yearn (First Title)
Bartosz Mierzwiak (Prologis ),
Tomasz Puch (Jones Lang LaSalle)
and Ben Bannatyne (Prologis)
December 15
Romania
June 16
July 14
Irina Gheorghe and Victor
Croitoru (Gardiner & Theobald)
Charalampos Giacandis, Anca
Petcu (Bank of Cyprus) and David
Hayward, Nicolae Kovacs (DPGS)
Andrei Vacru (JLL) and Oana
Vijiala (AFI Europe)
September 23
October
November
David Howard (DPGS) speaking
Dinu Patriciu
Sorin Huidu (Appraisal & Valuation)
and Ioana Momiceanu (DPGS)
December
Winter break
78
CIJ Archive
2006
EVEN MORE
CASH HEADED
FOR REAL
ESTATE
MARKETS
With the purchase of Metropolitan in March, German
fund Degi became the first to pay under 6 percent in
Central Europe. CiJ spoke with the investor’s head of
strategy and research: Tomas Beyerle, about where
the Polish market is heading and the next moves for
the company.
You’ve just dropped out of the race to buy Trinity
I from Ghelamco?
We decided not to pursue it. It wasn’t a decision
against more investment in Warsaw, but much more
a decision based on our intention to complete a
transaction in Bucharest within the next two or three
months. There are very few core products in that city
that are not in the hands of the Austrians.
Where are the opportunist markets for Degi?
Moscow and Ukraine, Bucharest, Sophia, and down
through the Balkans to Athens and Turkey. The pace
appears to be picking up in the next EU entrants.
While CE has evolved to the point it’s at now in
around ten years, people speak of them taking just
five.
These aren’t natural progressions though …
Absolutely not - it’s the money driving them.
Normally the opportunist developers will arrive
somewhere and then the capital follows. These days
it’s the other way around. Look at Sofia or Ukraine the product has been built for international investors,
not for the local economy. The question is whether
this is sustainable.
2001
ECM PUTS HEART
OF PRAGUE 4 ON
DRAWING BOARD
One of the key areas to Prague 4’s development has
long been the country’s tallest building, the old Czech
Radio building. In order to create as much value as
possible, the developer ECM has bought property
around the building and made an agreement with
ECE to co-develop the retail component of this enormous project.
Perhaps the most ambitious development project on
the Czech market today is City, the new name for
what used to be referred to as the Czech radio building. Located on top of the C line Pankrac metro stop,
the project involves a huge piece of land bordered by
five streets and two existing buildings that sit upon it.
The first of these are the Motokov building, an older
multi-story office building where countless multinationals began their Czech activities.
But it’s the second building which has always been
seen as the heart of the project, and according to
many the key to the development of commercial
property in Prague 4.
1996
BREWERY TO
BECOME OFFICE
SPACE
Jones Lang Wootton is selling a former brewery
complex owned by Prazsky Pivovary in Prague 3
which they are promoting as potential office space.
The owner has decided to sell the property without
permits in place and David Neil claims to have several parties with an asking price of around KC 120
million. Built around the turn of the century, the primary draw is a five floor malting building with two
underground levels that could be used for
shopping.”There have been a rash of investors coming into the marketplace,” said Neil. “I personally
think it is the low yields in Germany, but now Austria
is starting to see their yields go down so I think
they’re beginning to turn towards here in order to
boost their portfolios average yield.”
MITZI LINKA
Things may be hot in Warsaw these
ting that the buyer, Inverness & Co.,
days (and we don’t mean the weather),
is looking to help give the investment
but as predicted, the glow of the fire
market a bit of non-CPI CPR from out-
is finally reaching Prague as well. The
side CR. Future drama could even be
3B’s will have to wait for confidence
on the way from the same source. We
to seep further south by the looks of
are quite curious to hear what’s happe-
it, though with the PIGS deterioration
ned to a CEE sales director we suspect
lately, it’s hard to predict what’s co-
of reading this column, so we hope
ming next. But if Angel has gone at a
the coffee invite is consumated soon.
sporting price, it’s even more interes-
Maybe the switch from all-resi to “eve-
rything including sheds” got to be a
bit too much? There’s been less fallout
so far from the Big Merger than might
have been expected, though one
office head did beat a hasty path over
to Creepy Eye. And you never know
what the lure of London
might do
to some.
October 20
CIJ Marketing Awards PL
September 13
CEDEM
September 21 & 22
Bratislava office: we have moved!
R E A L E S TAT E
We are pleased to have moved office
in Bratislava to the following address
CO R P O R AT E / M & A
A N T I T R U S T / R E G U L ATO RY
Eurovea Central 2
Pribinova 6
811 09 Bratislava
Telephone: +421 2 2051 0233
Here at Wilson & Partners, we build on our strengths,
making sure that every addition is as good as the rest.
We believe this is the way to create a law firm that
that is built to last.
BANKING & FINANCE
www.wilsonscee.com

Residential Developers

Transcription

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