Europolis to launch EUR 400 mln CEE investment fund

Austrian property company Europolis plans to launch an investment fund with the firepower to invest EUR 400 mln in Central and Eastern European countries, Thomas Erdmann, Europolis’ member of the board, told PropertyEU in an interview at EXPO REAL. Erdmann said the company is in the process of setting up a new fund in which it will invest EUR 150 mln of its own equity.

With leverage, the fund will have the capacity to spend EUR 400 mln on CEE property. Europolis, which has offices in six CEE countries, will look for an investment partner for the fund at a later stage, Erdmann added. The vehicle will be ready to invest in mid-2010, and will target office, retail and logistics properties in CEE, with a preference for Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania.

Europolis controls assets worth over EUR 2 bn in CEE, consisting mainly of office properties (58%), logistics and retail assets. Like most property developers, Europolis has frozen its development pipeline in the past few months as a result of critical market conditions. ‘The majority of the pipeline has been frozen not for lack of funding, but because there was no demand from the corporate community,’ Erdmann said. ‘It did not make sense to add another empty building to the market, so we are waiting for market appetite to improve.’