Businessman Ion Tiriac’s Tiriac Holdings last week sold the company that developed the Praktiker project in Brasov to one of the most powerful real estate investors in Europe in an about 6 million-euro deal, sources close to the transaction told Ziarul Financiar.
Ballymore Properties, a company owned by one of the richest people in Ireland, Sean Mulryan, entered the Romanian market after probing it first for a while, by buying Sungrove Romaina SRL, 100% held by Tiriac Holdings. Sungrove is the proprietor of the plot of land and the building rented by German DIY company Praktiker in Brasov for long-term.
The powerful Irish investor is already studying the major real estate projects on the Bucharest market in view of further acquisitions, the quoted sources add.
After having made waves on the luxurious space market in central London in the last decade, Sean Mulryan has moved to extensive acquisitions of property in Prague, Bratislava and Budapest lately, planning to build a strong portfolio on the rising markets in the Central and Eastern European region. This strategy is what drove him to the attractive Romanian market, especially that in Bucharest.
In Hungary for instance, Ballymore Properties will invest approximately one billion euros in real estate on short term, from construction of luxurious flats, office space to facilities for cultural or entertainment industry institutions, the Hungarian press says.
Sungrove Romania SRL is a special purpose vehicle created by Tiriac Holdings to develop the Praktiker project in Brasov. The annual yield of the project is about 11%, the latest available data show.
When asked for comment on this deal, Tiriac Holdings officials said, “Certain contractual provisions prevent us from providing any information about the real estate operations of the Tiriac Group.”
Ballymore Properties representatives would not comment on this issue by the time of going to press.
Businessman Ion Tiriac is the one who practically introduced the German retail group Metro in Romania. Praktiker is Metro’s DIY division.
The Brasov-based Praktiker was built between August 2003-April 2004 by Alpine SA Brasov, 50% held by the Tiriac Holdings. The contract was worth 3.3 million euros, with Sungrove Romania as the beneficiary.
This Praktiker project comprises a 7,600 sqm store (2 levels) in addition to platforms and roads that take up 13,100 sqm.
This is not the first time when a project where Praktiker is a tenant gets sold. Austrian Meinl European Land Limited bought the Militari Shopping Center real estate project this autumn, developed by Belgian Liebrecht & wooD company, following a 20 million-euro deal.
The real estate market in Romania has become very attractive for the foreign investors, especially for the Austrian ones, with the deals concluded in the last two years as proof to verify this.
Austrian investors like Europolis or Immofinanz prepared more than 300 million euros for acquisitions on the domestic real estate market, regarded as the new “star” of the Romanian business.
adrian.mirsanu@zf.ro