The Europe House building located in Bucharest’s Victoriei Plaza, hosting the headquarters of mobile telephony operator Orange and other big multinationals, was sold by its Israeli builder for over $30 million to Europolis, an Austrian real estate investment fund.
Europe House, with 13,000 square metres in renting space, was completed eighteen months ago, on an unfinished structure in Victoriei Plaza and is now one of the few top office buildings in Bucharest and Romania.
This is the second large transaction on the Romanian realty market, after Opera Center, another class A office building in Bucharest, was sold in May to another Austrian company.
Europolis, a vehicle created especially for real estate investments in Central Europe, holds another 13 properties in this area: six office buildings in Warsaw, two in Budapest, three in Prague and two commercial centres in the Czech Republic.
Europolis is held by Austrian company Investkredit Bank AG, with 65% and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), with a 35% stake. Investkredit has 46 million euros in capital and is owned by German and Austrian banks and insurers, some of which also operating in Romania (HVB Group indirectly holds 26%, Raiffeisen – 15% and Wiener Staedtische – 7%).
“This is our first investment outside the basic Central European markets. This points to our confidence in the growth of the Romanian real estate market,” Wolfgang Lunardon, managing director of Europolis Invest Group, said when the investment was announced.
Europe House was built by GTC Real Estate Investment Romania BV, controlled by Israeli investment fund Kardan. The total investment amounted to $25 million, so the Israelis gained more than 5 million dollars from the deal.
Kardan is also involved in other business dealings in Romania, through its financial investment arm – TBI Holding, the main shareholder of insurance company Omniasig.
In the first notable real estate transaction in Romania this year, Opera Center (built by Czech company Portland Trust) was sold for $29 million to an Austrian investment company – CA Immo. It was CA Immo’s second transaction in Romania, after its participation in the construction of the Charles de Gaulle office building, together with Avrig 35 company.
“After these two transactions, Bucharest has pretty much run out of buildings targeted by this type of investments. Investors the size of Europolis or CA Immo are looking for big, class A, already rented office buildings, of more than 10,000 square metres,” says Mihnea Serbanescu, general manager of DTZ Echinox agency, representing the interests of Europolis in Romania. sorin.pislaru@zf.ro