Barely one month after its acquisition of the Sky Tower building in Wroclaw, Adventum Group, the CEE focused Real Estate Investment Manager, has exchanged contracts to acquire the fourth investment of its Adventum PENTA Fund. The 360,000 sqm portfolio will be a significant addition to its growing portfolio of assets across the core CEE countries including Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary.
A banking consortium of OTP Bank Plc. and Erste Group (Erste Group Bank AG and Erste Bank Hungary Zrt.) has entered into a new €150 million Acquisition Facility to finance the acquisition of the portfolio. The Acquisition Facility was Arranged by OTP Bank and Erste Bank. Adventum’s fifth Fund, Adventum PENTA, including its related JV structures has now commitments of approx. €240 million including significant amounts made by Western European and global investors.
From the Buyer’s side, Gergely Koós-Hutás commented: “The pandemic has accelerated some of the trends in the way people carry out their shopping. The share of online sales in Europe is expected to increase from 18 percent in 2020 to almost 25 percent in 2025. However, retail parks have proven their resilience during the pandemic and are expected to play a pivotal role in the future as they are seen as a hybrid operation providing in-store retailing with last-mile delivery fulfilment options. With this in mind, our business plan foresees to strengthen the already strong cash flow profile of the portfolio which is secured over a well-diversified pool of 900 tenants. In addition, we intend to significantly enhance the ESG profile of the assets by reducing and diversifying their energy consumption and ultimately obtaining environmental accreditation. This will help us to create a portfolio which appeals to a wide range of institutional investors.“
Kristóf Bárány, Founding Partner of Adventum commented: “This transaction is a prime example of Adventum’s sourcing and execution skills. Having been granted exclusivity to acquire this portfolio at the peak of the pandemic, our due diligence had to be undertaken during these unprecedented times. Despite the uncertainty in the global capital markets over the past six weeks our commitment to sign and complete this transaction has been always supported by our investors and financing banks alike which is a testament to the investment strategy and the core acquisition and asset management skills of Adventum as well as the resilience of this food anchored retail park portfolio. By executing our ESG focused refurbishment program and by the planned further diversification of the tenant mix with local and international tenants, we believe this retail park portfolio will serve the needs of local Hungarian and Czech consumers even better.”
Deloitte Legal and Deloitte Advisory teams assisted Adventum Group during the transaction by providing structuring, legal, financial and tax due diligence services. Hümpfner Law Firm advised in corporate legal matters while ESTON and Savills supported Adventum Group in the commercial brokerage and underwrite and CBRE in the ESG and technical due diligence. The banks were advised by CMS on legal matters.
