The Hamburg-based company Warburg-HIH Invest Real Estate has acquired a newly completed office property in Wrocław, Poland for its institutional real estate fund Europa Select Immobilien Invest. It was sold by French property developer NACARAT for the purchase price of around €21m.
The property Dubois 41 was completed at the end of June 2015 and occupies a central inner city location in the trendy and creative industry quarter of Nadodrze in Wrocław. It is well connected to the public mass transit network and is located on an attractive site on the bank of the Oder River, around ten minutes of walking from the historic town centre.
The office building, which also includes 125 underground parking spots, has an attractive, modern design and a high quality construction. The lettable area of 8,031m2 consists primarily of offices and small retail units on the ground floor. Among the tenants are subsidiaries of the conglomerate 3M, which is listed in the Dow Jones 30, and of the mechanical engineering company Parker Hannifin, an S&P 500 company. The leases have an average remaining term of just over six years, and therefore exceed the standard lifetime of Polish leases, which is five years.
“The Polish economy has proven robust during the most recent crisis in 2009, and was the only national economy in the European Union that did not slide into recession. In the coming ten years, we moreover expect the gross domestic product of Poland to grow at a much faster rate than that of Germany and the rest of the euro-zone,” said Andreas Schultz, Managing Director at Warburg-HIH Invest and responsible for the Transaction Management International.
“Poland's fourth-largest city has a sound infrastructure and a high potential in skilled professionals, making it one of the most dynamic cities in the country.”
Total modern office stock in Poland amounted to 8 million m2 at the end of Q3 2015. Warsaw, being the largest and most established market in the country, consists of 4.6 million m2 of office space; however other cities like Krakow and Wroclaw are receiving increasing interest.
In the first three quarters of 2015, Warsaw office market grew by nearly 240,000m2, while the eight regional cities saw 246,000m2 of new office space added to the market. Presently, there is 1.2 million m2 under construction, of which 47% is being developed in eight regional cities.
The estate agency MF Capital and the international law firm of Hogan Lovells served as counsel for the buyer. The seller was advised by the property consultancy Cushman & Wakefield and by the international law firm of Baker & McKenzie.
