Austria's troubled Österreichische Volksbanken AG (VBAG) has mandated investment bank Lazard to evaluate the sale of its Central and Eastern European real estate investment unit Europolis, in efforts to reposition its loss-making business. Alexander Bosak, spokesperson for Europolis, confirmed to PropertyEU that the banking group has started 'a formal process to evaluate all strategic options' including the establishment of a partnership for Europolis, which owns a portfolio of EUR 1.7 bn across CEE.
Austria's troubled Österreichische Volksbanken AG (VBAG) has mandated investment bank Lazard to evaluate the sale of its Central and Eastern European real estate investment unit Europolis, in efforts to reposition its loss-making business. Alexander Bosak, spokesperson for Europolis, confirmed to PropertyEU that the banking group has started 'a formal process to evaluate all strategic options' including the establishment of a partnership for Europolis, which owns a portfolio of EUR 1.7 bn across CEE.
VBAG, which posted a loss of EUR 1.1 bn last year, was hit hard by its real estate business, which experienced sharp writedowns over 2009. According to CEO Gerald Wenzel, the bank is currently entering into more detailed negotiations with a number of potential partners in order to develop joint future scenarios. US private equity firms Perella Weinberg and TGP Capital, Austrian property group CA Immo and fund manager Area Property Partners are said to be in talks to buy into Europolis, according to news reports.
Vienna-based Europolis owns a real estate portfolio valued at around EUR 1.7 bn, consisting of 45 office buildings, shopping centres and logistics parks in Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Croatia, Serbia, Russia and Ukraine. The company has managed the real estate portfolio E1 of Volksbank's Investkredit Bank subsidiary since 1997.
