Trei Real Estate has increased its development volume to €960m during the first half-year of 2020. This implies an increase by €60m since year-end 2019. Overall, Trei currently has around 3,800 residential units under development or in planning in Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland and the United States. Out of this total, 40% are located in Poland, 35% in Germany, 20% in the United States and the remaining five percent in the Czech Republic. The total value of Trei’s existing portfolio remained unchanged at €1.2bn by mid-year 2020. All in, Trei had 392 standing properties under management as of 30 June 2020. Thereof, 36%t are located in Poland (144 assets), 31% in Germany (123 assets) and 17% in the Czech Republic (68 assets).
Pepijn Morshuis, CEO of Trei Real Estate, commented: “Despite the coronavirus crisis, we managed to continue and expand our development activities during the first half-year of 2020. All projects that were already under construction continued in spite of lockdown measures in the various countries, and did so without major disruptions. We keep concentrating on the implementation of our housing strategy. Our developments in Germany are making steady progress and our “Zollhafen Mainz” project entered its next phase this spring with the selection of an architectural firm. In April, we initiated another project in Hamburg with the acquisition of a plot. Aside from Germany, the most important market for Trei is Poland. We stepped up the effort to complete our developments in Poland, and our projects in Wroclaw, Lodz, Poznan and Warsaw made good progress as a result. On the whole, Trei is developing 1,600 residential units in Poland. In the beginning of the year, we also kicked off our second US development in Charleston/South Carolina.”
The development activities in the retail property segment still concentrate strongly on retail parks of the Vendo Park brand in Poland. Overall, Trei owned 27 Vendo Parks as of 30 June 2020, thereof 17 in Poland. This year alone, Trei is planning to open another five retail parks in this country just east of Germany. Pepijn Morshuis commented by saying: “We intend to become the biggest retail park investor in CEE, especially in Poland. The potential for retail parks is still considerable, and far from exhausted.”
Matthias Schultz, CFO of Trei, added: “We are financing the expansion and continuation of our development activities by increasing our gearing ratio, among other strategies. In the ongoing year, we intend to secure a total of c. €205m in new bank financing. It is planned to raise our leverage to somewhere between 40 and 45% by the end of this year. We even have a little more room to manoeuvre in the medium term, and are aiming to go as high as 50%.”
