Atrium European Real Estate, owner and manager of shopping centres and retail real estate in Central and Eastern Europe has announced the appointment of Scott Abbey as Group Head of Leasing.

The continental European operation of Palmer Capital changed its shareholder structure and rebranded itself as Arcona Capital. 

International real estate developer HB Reavis bought the freehold interest in 61 Southwark Street from Aberdeen Asset Management for £44 million.

Prologis today celebrated the grand opening of a 25,414 square metre build-to-suit facility for BMW Group at Prologis Park Bratislava.

The vacancy rate in the Czech Republic industrial market reached 4.2%, having decreased by 96 bps since Q4 2015. The Industrial Research Forum has announced its final industrial market figures for Q1 2016. 

GTC has acquired two buildings in Bucharest, Premium Plaza and Premium Point. The two modern A-class office buildings in the capital’s CBD will increase GTC’s Romanian portfolio by 15,000 square metres of net leasable area.

OTP Real Estate Investment Fund has acquired a 30-thousand-square-metre logistics property within the Industrial Park of Győr. The purchase is part of a portfolio optimization strategy, by which the Fund aims to increase the yields of the OTP Real Estate Investment Fund.

The Prague Research Forum announced its office market figures for the first quarter of 2016. Gross take-up amounted to 92,200 sq m, representing a decrease of 43% compared to the previous quarter and an increase of 26% in year-on-year comparison. In Q1 2016, the vacancy rate decreased by 0.7 percentage points to 13.9% compared to the previous quarter.

IT and business service centres were the most active tenants on the Prague office market last year, having signed lease contracts for 84,000 sqm and reaching 31 % of net take-up. In 2015 the largest leasing transaction represented by an agent (JLL) was concluded in the history of Prague´s office market – SAP leased nearly 25,000 sqm in Metronom office building in Prague 5. SAP will move its 2,000 employees working for three operations under one roof. 

The vacancy rate on the Budapest industrial market declined 2 percentage points to a level below 10%. The Budapest Research Forum has published its Q1 2016 industrial market snapshot.