September 18 (SeeNews) - U.K.-based real estate developer Bulgarian Property Developments (BPD) said on Tuesday its subsidiary Varna Logistics had borrowed 22 million euro ($30.5 million) to finance its logistics centre project in the Black Sea city of Varna.
"The loan is for a term of three years, with the option to extend it once the development is completed, and is sufficient to cover 88% of the anticipated costs of construction of the development," BPD said in a statement to the London Stock Exchange. The lender is Bulgarian commercial bank Unicredit Bulbank.
Varna Logistics is a 50:50 joint venture between BPD and Bulgarian FairPlay Commercial, which is wholly-owned by real estate developer FairPlay International. The company owns the 132,500 square metre Varna Logistics Park in Bulgaria's third-biggest city of Varna.
"BPD, together with FairPlay Commercial, has planned a mixed use development providing approximately 80,000 square metres of modern warehousing and mid range offices, together with trade showrooms," BPD said in the statement. Construction works commenced in March and the first warehouse is expected to be completed and fully let by the end of this year.
The total investment in the project, to be completed in three stages, was estimated to exceed 100 million levs ($70.8 million/51.1 million euro), BPD and FairPlay said earlier in a joint statement.
The 50:50 joint venture plans also to invest some 60 million levs in a trade and residential building in the country's second largest city of Plovdiv.
FairPlay International and BPD also own 38% each in a 30-million lev trade and residential project in the northern city of Pleven, which should be launched in mid-2007 and will be completed for two years. Bulgarian-registered construction firm Sofia Estates owns the remaining 24% in the joint venture.
BPD bought earlier this year an 87,000 square metre commercial site in Bulgaria's capital Sofia, which it plans to develop into a business and retail centre. The company has also acquired a 50% stake in a shopping centre development in Vidin, in northern Bulgaria.
BRD floated on the Alternative Investments Market (AIM) of the London Stock Exchange in January 2005, raising 4.2 million pounds ($8.4 million/6.0 million euro). It raised a further 32.9 million pounds net in January 2006.
(1 euro = 1.95583 Bulgarian levs)