The appetite for acquisitions of investment fund Immofinanz seems to be without limits, with the Austrians having recently bought two more office buildings in Bucharest.
The cumulated value of their latest acquisitions - the Bucharest Corporate Center and the building in Pipera that hosts Connex''s technical department - exceeds 50 million euros, sources close to the deal say.
Immofinanz is the largest real estate investment fund in Austria and manages properties valued at 4.4bn euros. Immofinanz''s market capitalisation on the Vienna Bourse overshoots 2.6bn euros.
Immofinanz entered Romania last year when it bought the Iride Business Park project and has been hunting out almost every opportunity on the real estate market since.
With four acquisitions worth more than 130 million euros, the Austrian fund has positioned itself as the most active player on this segment, where it has been competing with other Austrian financial investors - CA Immo, Europolis - and more recently with Irish investors - Ballymore Properties and RI Investment Group.
Neither Immofinanz nor the developers of the two projects provided any comment by the time this story went to press.
Bucharest Corporate Center (BCC) was acquired in a deal worth approximately 26.5 million euros, the quoted sources revealed.
The BCC project now under development in Piata Victoriei, which is known as Bucharest''s business district, was very close to being bought by a real estate division of the insurance group Generali.
"The terms were changed and the buyer was no longer Generali Immobilien, but Immofinanz, which is related to the former via shareholders," the quoted sources said.
Immofinanz eventually offered 15-20% more and completed the purchase. The project was developed and sold by Bucharest Corporate Center SRL, which is 50%-owned by Cyprus-registered firm Bucharest Corporate Center Ltd. and Summa Romania shareholders, the company that handled the construction of the building.
Bucharest Corporate Center Ltd. is in its turn held by Danube Fund (36%) and Diekat of Greece (around 26%) among others, the latest available data show.
Estimates by the developer show the building to have a built surface area of 18,000 square metre of class A office space (13,000 square metres available for rent). The total investment will exceed 17 million euros by December, when it is scheduled for opening.
At such a price, the annual yield on the investment stands at some 9%.
Immofinanz also recently acquired the building that since May of this year has hosted the technical department of mobile telephony operator Connex in the Pipera area of Bucharest. The project was developed by Israeli-held firm Delta Intensiv-Trade.
The value of the deal exceeds 25 million euros, the quoted sources say.
Immofinanz''s consultant in the two acquisitions was law firm Popovici & Asociatii. Immofinanz also bought the Global Business Center building from Delta Intensiv Trade this year, home to Connex''s customer relations department. Transactions with office buildings in Bucharest began in 2003 after the first class A projects became available. The very high demand for space in conditions of limited supply ensures each project is quickly absorbed by the market.
Developers are being assailed with buy offers. Investment yields have fallen from 10-11% in 2004 to less than 9% this year, coming close to the level of yields on the real estate markets in Central and Eastern Europe.
adrian.mirsanu@zf.ro ; ionut.bonoiu@zf.ro
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