Bosh in Romania

A local paper in Romania is reporting that the German automobile electronics supplier Bosch is considering investing as much as €60m into an industrial park in a Cluj-Napoca factory. The article says the company could hire up to 2,000 people to work at the facility.

P3 signs Noack Electric and Topsteel

PointPark Prague D8 has a pair of new tenants to attend to now: Noark Electric Europe and Topsteel. Both companies have moved to building DC03. Noark Electric signed up for 878 sqm of warehouse space and 95 sqm of office, while Topsteel signed a contract for 1,747 sqm of warehouse and 358 sqm of office. PointPark Prague D8 currently offers 7,500 sqm of completed space with option to add further three buildings totaling 62,300 sqm, most likely for BTS solutions.

DSV extends at Panattoni Park Teresin

DSV Group extended a crucial lease at Panattoni Park Teresin, news that will be welcomed by the park’s owner  Standard Life Investments. After all, the company has no less than 35,600 sqm of space under lease in the scheme, developed by Panattoni Europe, from where it conducts business in logistics and transportation. The lease contract, mediated by Colliers International, has been extended by another 5 years. In all, DSV occupies 55,000 sqm of space at other Panattoni logistics parks in Pruszków, Kraków and Łódź.

CMBS in USA inching up

No doubt there’s still bad news around the corner, but it’s encouraging to see positive news as well. Not only is unemployment down to 2009 levels while the housing market is genuinely showing signs of bottoming out, but CMBS lending is creeping up. From WSJ:

Standard & Poor’s said the issuance of U.S. commercial mortgage-backed securities improved last year, though issuance fell below its expectations due to uncertainty and volatility resulting from the European debt crisis and other macroeconomic events.

Aggregate CMBS issuance for 2011 was $32.7 billion, below S&P’s forecast of $35 billion. S&P noted CMBS activity increased significantly early in the year, but the pace of issuance has since slowed.

For 2012, S&P again projected $35 billion in CMBS issuance. While global economic headwinds are expected to temper the near-term expansion of CMBS issuance, S&P credit analyst David Mollin said commercial real estate fundamentals have improved modestly in recent years and noted securitization will continue to play a significant role in the sector’s recovery.

Epstein begins Star Foods warehouse

Epstein Architecture & Engineering has begun building a finished good warehouse for Star Foods on the southern edge of Bucharest. The €2.5m scheme is an extension of the company’s existing manufacturing facility and will include a 4,500 sqm warehouse for finished products. Completion is expected by the middle of 2012. Improvements to the entire facility will be made at the same time, such as upgrading fire water supply, a new guard house and truck facilities.

Is Orban backing down?

Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban seems to be softening his stance on his government’s latest idea for how to control the economy (sic), but it’s not at all clear this will be enough to calm markets in the near-term.

Markets welcomed the shift which allowed Hungarian assets to regain some of the strength lost during the earlier days of the week but this didn’t stop Fitch Ratings from completing Hungary’s hattrick of junk-rankings at major rating firms.

Mr. Orban met in the morning with central bank governor Andras Simor, Economy Minister Gyorgy Matolcsy, Tamas Fellegi, Hungary’s lead negotiator in talks with the International Monetary Fund and the European Union, and chief of staff Mihaly Varga, to discuss economic issues and the country’s bid to secure financial backing from the EU/IMF duo.

Besides the accord of Messrs. Orban and Simor that Hungary’s best interests are best supported by a quick agreement with the EU/IMF, it also marks an attempt at reconciliation between the sides, after a series of open rows, most importantly about the country’s new central bank law. The regulation — criticized internationally as an infringement on the central bank’s institutional independence — appears to be the most hotly contested issue and may prevent Hungary from receiving the support it seeks.

Hungary’s 15 minutes

Much as we hate to start the year on a downer, 2012 looks set to begin with considerable international media coverage of Hungary. All last year, when Greece was grabbing headlines any time Italy managed to fall off of them, we kept thinking how fortunate it was Central Europe wasn’t (directly) involved.

It is now. We know how sensitive people can be about jumping on the bad news bandwagon, but you’ll have to send us some feel-good story ideas. Otherwise, we’ll be left with news about the falling forint, and with this sort of commentary from FT Alphaville (quoting Nomura’s Peter Attard Montalto)

The government thinks it has enough cash to last it through any short term difficulties and take it to the other side of the Eurozone crisis. That is not the case… That is the catalyst. We are here because of bank deleveraging caused by Hungary’s own policies alienating the banks, by its anti-growth policies that have alienated FDI investors, by its unsustainable fiscal policy with a budget that hides a huge underlying deficit this year of close to -8%, policies around MNB independence etc, and above all investors scratching their heads and questioning the government’s credibility. That is why we are here.

CIJ Awards Romania: The results!

The CIJ Awards in Romania last week were the last of the series, which began six weeks ago in Warsaw and continued through Prague, Budapest and Bratislava before hitting the Romanian capital. The crowd in Bucharest was big and the winners were congratulated in an enthusiastic mood. Once again, we tip our hats to all the developers who completed projects during 2011, and send a special congratulations out to the all the winners. You probably already know their names, but the pictures are most likely new to most of you. Check back later in the day for even more pictures, as more continue to come in.

Best Office Development
Crystal Tower

Best Small Office Development
Romana Offices

Best Shopping Center Development
Maritimo Shopping Center

Best Retail Development – Phase
Baneasa Shopping City

Best Warehouse/Logistics Development
Ploiesti West Park

Best Law Firm of the Year
Tuca Zbarcea & Asociati

Investor of the Year
NEPI

Property Management Team of the Year
DTZ Echinox

Real Estate Agency of the Year
The Advisers/Knight Frank

Project Management Company of the Year
Vitalis

Retailer of the Year
H&M

Personality of the Year
Robert Neale

Developer of the Year
Baneasa Developments

CIJ Awards Slovakia: The results

The CIJ Awards Romania evening is about to kick off, but we have just about enough time to post details on the CIJ Awards Slovakia that took place at the Sheraton in Bratislava earlier this week. There was a great atmosphere this year, with the crowd seemingly willing to put aside all the cares and worries we’ve been plagued with for an evening. The new on-line voting plus jury voting system was accepted and there was a real enthusiasm for many of the nominated companies and projects. Here are the winners, and we’ll be putting up a few more  pictures during the day tomorrow.

Best Office Development
Westend Square (J&T Real Estate)

Best Shopping Center Development
Aupark Košice (HB Reavis Slovakia)

Best Residential Development
Jantar Jarovce (Sitno Holding / Realkapital Partners AS)

Best Warehouse/Logistics Development
PointPark Bratislava  (PointPark Properties)

Best Overall Development
Aupark Košice (HB Reavis Slovakia)

Developer of the Year
HB Reavis Slovakia

Industry Leadership Award
Peter Bečar (PointPark Properties)

Law Firm of the Year
Salans

Financial Service Provider of the Year
VÚB banka

Property Management Team of the Year
Cushman & Wakefield

Best Local Real Estate Agency
Lexxus

Best International Real Estate Agency
Cushman & Wakefield

DTZ sold to UGL

DTZ’s epic journey to new ownership could be over, with news that the company had been sold to the Australian UGL Group. The company was placed into administration before the deal went through while operations continued normally. UGL was looking for a platform to widen its Asian coverage.

Richard Leupen, UGL’s managing director and chief executive, said: “Combining UGL and DTZ will create one of the world’s largest property services businesses by revenue and capability allowing us to broaden our existing property services offering across a global footprint.”

CIJ Awards Hungary: The results are in!

So we’re posting the winners from the CIJ Awards Hungary along with some pictures below. Once again, our congratulations to all the companies that completed schemes over the course of this difficult year. And thank you, once again, to everyone who turned up on Thursday night to make it a really enjoyable event.

We’ve gotten a couple pictures from that evening event already  which are down at the bottom of this post (click on them to view the album), and we’ll up  more of them as they come through, and they’ll be on our Hungarian Facebook pages as well. (Everyone’s welcome to become a friend, by the way).

Best Office Development
Officium (SCD Group)

Best Shopping Center Development
Arkad Szeged (ECE)

Best Hotel Development
BohemArt Hotel 

Industry Leadership Award
Arpad Torok (Trigranit)

Developer of the Year
Trigranit

Law Firm of the Year
Kovari Tercsak Salans

Best International Real Estate Agency
Cushman & Wakefield

Property Management Team of the Year
Cushman & Wakefield

Click on the pictures to see them up close, in album format!

 

PPF objects to management changes at ECM

PPF has filed an injunction against potential changes to the board of directors at the failed developer ECM. A Prague court was due to decide whether to accept a proposal under which top board members in ECM would be replaced by three people from the Prague developer Crestyl. There’s a great deal at stake, with interests as diverse as the creditors of EMC themselves, so that someone has filed an official complaint should come as little surprise.