June 5 (SeeNews) - Property investment in Romania rose 21% year-on-year in the first quarter, reaching 145 million euro ($162.4 million), property and investment management services provider Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) said on Friday.
The value is much below expectations for the first quarter, as two large-scale transactions worth an estimated 400 million euro were cancelled, JLL said in a press release.
One of these transactions was the disposal of NEPI's office portfolio, which was terminated after the buyer - AFI Europe, failed to fulfil some procedures.
Close to 63% of the total property investment in Romania was made in Bucharest in the first three months of the year.
Over half of the market volumes were office transactions, followed by industrial and retail deals, which accounted for 31% and 15% respectively.
The average value of transactions decreased to 14.5 million euro in the first quarter of 2020, from 23.6 million euro in the fourth quarter of 2019.
The largest buyer in the office market in the first quarter of 2020 was London-listed Globalworth Real Estate Investment, which acquired 50% of office development Renault Bucharest Connected from Elgan Group, remaining the sole owner of the project, JLL said.
In the industrial area, Czech real estate developer CTP acquired Equest Logistic Park in Romania for 30 million euro from Dutch-registered holding and finance company Forum Serdika.
The end of the first quarter of 2020 marked the beginning of the Covid-19 medical emergency in Europe and Romania and measures taken to limit the spread of the virus have caused significant uncertainty with a strong impact on the investment market so far, delaying many of the ongoing transactions, JLL said.
According to the company, the total volume of investments for 2020 cannot be estimated accurately at the moment because of the epidemiological situation, with many restrictions still in place.
"Emergency measures were lifted in Romania in mid-May, so we expect to better understand the extent of the impact of the new virus on the economy and the real estate market at the end of the second quarter," the company said.
JLL is specialised in professional and investment management services in real estate. With a global annual revenue of some $7 billion, it has 300 branches in 80 countries and employs over 80,000.
($ =0.8929 euro)