October 14 (SeeNews) - PPF Real Estate investment fund had finalized the purchase of Metropolis Center office building in Bucharest from Austria's Soravia group for an undisclosed price, property and investment management services provider Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) Romania said on Friday.
This is PPF's first investment in Romania, JLL announced in a press release.
The transaction is estimated at some 50 million euro ($55.1 million), sources from the real estate market told SeeNews.
Situated in Bucharest's number one district, Metropolis Center has an area of 19,000 sq m and is currently leased by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, DLA Piper law house, Parexel, ING and Reckitt Benckiser. The building was initially a hotel but in 2014 Soravia decided to transform it into an office building, due to more favorable market conditions on the office real estate market.
PPF Real Estate operates in the Czech Republic, Russia, the Netherlands, Germany and other European countries and manages assets worth 2 billion euro.
Romania's real estate market is slowly but steadily entering on the radar of new investors, head of JLL Capital Markets Department, Silviana Badea, said.
Property investment in Romania reached 400 million euro in the first nine months. JLL said it expects full-year investment to climb to 600-700 million euro.
In 2015, property investment in Romania dropped to 650 million euro from close to 1.3 billion euro in 2014.
($= 0.9074 euro)