SECURE Property Development & Investment PLC (AIM: SPDI), a South Eastern European focused property and investment company, has reached an agreement to acquire the Innovations logistics park in Bucharest, Romania, from Myrian Nes Ltd and Theandrion Estates Ltd. The acquisition will be the Company’s first outside of Ukraine and marks the commencement of SECURE’s stated strategy of both growing and diversifying its portfolio across the economies of South Eastern Europe.
Innovations is a fully-let 17,000 m² gross leasable area logistics park located in Clinceni in Bucharest, which benefits from being on the Bucharest ring road, and currently produces €1.3 million of income per annum. The anchor tenant is Nestle which leases more than 60% of the gross leasable area with the remainder is let to locally managed Romanian businesses. This acquisition is expected to increase the Company’s annual net operating income by over 60%.
The acquisition will strengthen SECURE’s focus on the logistics industry and increases its regional logistics portfolio, which also includes the fully let Terminal Brovary asset in Kiev, to 67,000 m².
As the largest economy in South Eastern Europe, Romania has been recovering well in recent quarters, recording GDP growth of 5.2% in Q4 2013 (3.5% y-o-y 2013). Unemployment in Bucharest is around 4% and the country’s fundamentals outperform substantially any other economy in the region. Logistics is widely considered to be among the fastest growing asset classes for the next few years, particularly given the return to economic growth which is now anticipated.
Lambros Anagnostopoulos, Chief Executive Officer of Secure Property, commented: “The agreement to acquire the Innovations Logistics Park signals the first step of the Company’s growth strategy into becoming a regional property company across the very promising but often under rated region of South Eastern Europe. It adds diversification to our portfolio, consolidates our focus on the fast growing logistics sector and gives a substantial boost to our Company’s income generating capacity.”
Source: FTI Consulting
