Raiffeisen Bank extends lease on 8,000m[sup]2[/sup] in Bucharest

Austrian lender Raiffeisen Bank has extended its lease agreement on 8,000 m² of office space it uses as its head office in Romania. The building, located in Bucharest's Charles de Gaulle Plaza, is owned by GLL Real Estate Partners' Accession Fund. Jones Lang LaSalle and CBRE Eurisko represented the owner in the leasing transaction.

'It is a great pleasure to announce that Raiffeisen Bank recently renewed its lease contract in CDG Plaza for their headquarters in Romania', said Troy Javaher, JLL's managing director for Romania. The operation comes shortly after the leasing in early January of further office space in the building to Unicredit Tiriac Bank.

The Charles de Gaulle Plaza office building is fully-leased to Western European corporate tenants. The property is located in a prime location in the northern part of Bucharest on a major traffic junction overlooking the Charles de Gaulle Square and Herastrau Park. Completed in 2005, it is one of the flagship office buildings in the city, with a total lettable area of 23,890 m² consisting of 17 upper floors, with a 14-storey central atrium, and five basement floors.

GLL Real Estate Partners acquired the property in June 2006 from Austrian group Ca Immo for EUR 82 mln. Hypo Real Estate Bank International provided a EUR 58 mln financing for the transaction.

GLL Real Estate Partners is a Munich, New York and San Francisco based real estate fund management company. The Accession Fund is a EUR 1 bn vehicle targeting office, retail and logistics properties in Central and Eastern Europe.