Europa Capital has concluded the sale of the Kalvin Portfolio, Budapest. The Kalvin Portfolio comprises two City Centre office buildings in Budapest with a total floor area of approximately 26,000 m².
KGAL, a leading independent European asset and investment manager, acquired the Kalvin Square and CityZen assets on behalf of institutional investors. The combined price for the portfolio is approximately €60m. The property management will be carried out by KGAL´s local partner ConvergenCE.
James Pennington, Director of Asset Management for Europa Capital, said: “The portfolio was acquired out of a distressed position, when the buildings had a combined vacancy of around 45% and were capital-starved. We implemented an intensive active asset management strategy that involved a significant refurbishment and rebranding of the CityZen building, extended leases with existing tenants and marketed and leased the vacant space. A BREEAM ‘very good’ environmental rating was secured on both CityZen and Kalvin Square. Over the two-year period of Europa Capital’s ownership, the contracted rental income has increased from €1.4m to €4m, and the weighted average lease term has significantly increased from 1.5 years to 4.6 years.”
ConvergenCE Hungary provided investment acquisition, local asset, property and project management services to Europa Capital.
Robert Martin, Founding Partner and Europa Capital’s Head of Central Europe commented: “Two years ago, we identified the Budapest office market as tactically compelling. With improving macroeconomic indicators combined with a low development pipeline and a shortage of high quality space, we believed occupational and capital market dynamics would improve. We have now executed our strategy and so delivered strong returns to our investors. We further believe in positive development of the Budapest office market.”
André Zücker, Managing Director KGAL Investment Management and responsible for Real Estate, points out: “We expanded our European growth strategy into Budapest for a very good reason. We see a huge upside potential for this part of the European office market.”
