Polish Market Active With Recent Sales

[IMGCAP(1)]WROCLAW, POLAND-Continuing its robust performance in 2007, the Polish commercial real estate market is showing signs of strength in 2008. Three sizeable properties changed hands this week, with W.P. Carey & Co. acquiring a retail facility in Wroclaw for $14 million, Credit Suisse Asset Management purchasing a Krakow office complex, and the Grand Hotel Lodz trading for $29.5 million.

[IMGCAP(2)]The Wroclaw retail deal is the third sale-leaseback the W.P. Carey Group has arranged with the OBI Group over the last two years, providing more than $200 million in financing to the German Do-It-Yourself retailer. “The sale-leaseback and build-to-suit transactions we’ve completed with W.P. Carey have played a significant role in supporting our growth initiatives over the past two years,” says Sergio Giroldi, CEO of OBI, in a prepared statement. “Despite the vagaries of the capital markets, the sale-leaseback transactions have been a steady source of capital, allowing us to focus on our core business and evaluate our development strategy within the context of quantifiable financial parameters.”

W.P. Carey has been an increasingly active sale-leaseback financier in Europe. In 2007, the company completed more than $650 million in transactions in Germany, Finland, France and Poland. “By reinforcing the consistency and efficiency of the sale-leaseback model at various points in the economic and credit market cycles, these types of follow-on transactions hopefully encourage other companies to look at the sale-leaseback as a constant, available and attractive financing alternative,” notes Edward LaPuma, president of W.P. Carey International.