In 2015, Skanska has delivered to the market five office investments in Central and Eastern Europe, and sold six office buildings for over €250 million. In Poland, the company is currently developing five office investments with four of them located in regional cities. Skanska’s success was recognized by the commercial real estate experts with the company winning the highest number of awards among all developers nominated in the CEE Investment Awards.
The fifth edition of the CEE Investment & Green Building competition held this year proved to be a huge success for Skanska which won four awards. Skanska won two of the most prestigious office categories: Skanska Commercial Development Europe was recognized as Developer of the Year, while the Dominikanski office project in Wroclaw won the Project of the Year: Best Office Development award. Furthermore, the company won two awards in transaction categories: for the sales of Kapelanka 42 B in Krakow and Green Horizon in Lodz.
“2015 was one of our most active years ever both on the transaction market and in terms of developing projects. We are excited by the growing trust of tenants who are more open to closer co-operation with our company in terms of office space arrangement. Our biggest success this year was the sale of our office building portfolio for €160 million, which comprised four projects located in Krakow and Katowice. This was the biggest transaction conducted in Central and Eastern Europe in 2015. The portfolio was bought by Niam Swedish fund whose purchase was the fund’s first in this part of Europe. The quality of our buildings was certainly an important factor in encouraging Niam to invest in Poland’s commercial real estate market. We develop modern office buildings that provides flexible space which can be tailored to the business demands of our tenants. We pride ourselves on closely cooperating with our clients and recognizing their individual needs. This enables us to develop projects that meet the most demanding of expectations,” said Katarzyna Zawodna, Managing Director at Skanska Property Poland.
In 2015, Skanska Commercial Development Europe (CDE) has maintained its leading position on the transaction office market in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). A sales agreement for the Corso Court office project, located in the Czech Republic, was recently signed with Invesco Real Estate. This is Skanska’s sixth building in the CEE region that has been bought by investors. In August 2015, Malta House in Poznan joined the portfolio managed by REINO Partners. In October, Skanska completed its first portfolio transaction in the CEE region. The Niam transaction is the biggest sale transaction on the CEE office market conducted so far this year and also Skanska’s biggest ever transaction in the CEE region. Furthermore, Skanska CDE is planning to enhance its market position in the next few years by selling at least seven office buildings a year.
This year’s successes are on a par with the company’s excellent results from 2014 when nine office buildings located in Czech Republic, Poland, Romania and Hungary were sold. The buildings were sold for €330 million in total and the transactions provided Skanska with a 10 percent share of the overall office transaction market in the CEE region and comprised 50 percent of all sales realized by the company globally.
