Real estate transactions on the Romanian market, regarded as one of the most attractive business opportunities at the moment in Europe, have drawn some of the biggest players in this field.
UK investment funds, whose capitalisation is in the range of hundreds of millions of euros and assets managed are worth billions of euros, have entered the Romanian market in full steam this year buying everything they could find for sale.
Charlemagne, Equest Balkan, Dawnay Day and Accession Fund bought over 220 million euros' worth in the first eight months of this year, much more than the average of the previous years.
The entry of such players made transactions worth over 20 million euros look common. A barrier was also to fall in the summer. Accession Fund made the biggest acquisition on the history of the Romanian real estate market by paying 80 million euros for the class A office building Charles de Gaulle Plaza, which houses the headquarters of mobile telephony operator Vodafone Romania, as well as HVB Bank Romania and Raiffeisen.
The previous record had been set by the Austrians at CA Immo and Immofinanz, who had made two acquisitions worth 60 to 65 million euros.
The Brits at Charlemagne Capital bought three Class A office buildings in Bucharest this year on which they have already spent 80 million euros. They are also looking at another acquisition on the office space market, this time worth around 20 million euros.
"There's been a significant rise in the number of investment funds on the domestic real estate market. Whereas there were only three major funds on the market a year ago, now their number has reached 20. These are institutional and private funds whose capital ranges between 20 and 350 million euros. Most of them focus on income properties, office buildings and commercial estates rented under ironclad contracts, but are also purchasing land for further developments. They are attracted to the very high yield in both cases," says Alexandra Dimofte, partner with the Eurisko real estate company.
Greek and Israeli developers were the first to make a move in the real estate business in 1990, buying land, developing office buildings and shopping complexes in Romania.
The second phase of real estate market development began in 2003, with the descent of the Austrian investors: Immofinanz, Europolis, CA Immo or Meinl European Limited. At the same time, Irish investors began entering the market, though the value of their acquisition was not as high.
Big investors started looking into the acquisition of major projects between 2003 and 2005, but such projects were not commonplace on the market.
The first signs of an entry by big European players was the wave of announcements about funds with hundreds of millions of euros in capitalisation being raised, such as Heitman and Global Finance.
Morley Fund Management, part of the Morley group that manages 157 billion pounds sterling (235 billion euros) in assets, announced the acquisition of the industrial project Phoenix Business Park in Western Bucharest, a deal put at 8 million euros, last year.
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