“The Romanian investment market is going through an eventful period as we estimate for the entire 2019 a transactional volume surpassing the €1.00 billion milestone, a value unreached since 2014. The added value brought by a real estate consultancy company is vital and CBRE’s team has proven a strong track record in major transactions on the office, retail and industrial markets. I am confident that my background of having worked on both the client side, as well as in the agency, represents the perfect mix that clients need”, stated Gijs Klomp, Head Investment Properties at CBRE Romania.

As a Dutch citizen, Gijs Klomp had his first contact with the Romanian market back in 2000, during his internship at Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urbanism in Bucharest. In 2006, he set up the ING Real Estate Investment Management business in Romania, being responsible for sourcing investment opportunities in the office and retail sector. ING Real Estate Investment Management (ING REIM) was bought in 2011 by US company CBRE and became CBRE Global Investors.

Starting May 2013, Gijs Klomp joined real estate consultancy JLL Romania as Managing Director and in early 2015 returned to CBRE to head CBRE’s Romanian and later CEE capital markets department.

As an investment agent at JLL and CBRE, Gijs was involved in transactions totalling close to €500 million, including the sale of shopping centres Promenada Mall (Bucharest) and Electroputere Parc (Craiova) and office buildings Green Court (Bucharest) and Metropolis Center (Bucharest).

As of July 2016, Gijs joined New Europe Property Investments (NEPI), the largest retail property landlord in Romania, to become part of their investment team that was expanding its geographical coverage through investments in Croatia, Bulgaria, Hungary and Lithuania.

When Gijs was acting on the principal side, at NEPI Rockcastle and CBRE Global Investors, he was involved in well over €1.50 billion of transactions in CEE including amongst others the purchases of Arena Plaza and SC Mammut (Budapest), Arena Centar (Zagreb) and Paradise Center and Serdika Offices and Mall (Sofia).

“When you are a market leader, you are always looking to attract the best people in your team. It is a proven fact that leaders are only as successful as their teams and that is why we focus on the right team dynamics, decisions and diverse personalities, in order to provide the best real estate services for our clients. Personally, I am very happy that Gijs is again part of CBRE team, proving once again that the company has evolved in the past years. The local investment market is also becoming more mature and we expect to see new investors, with a long-term strategy, confident about the stable returns that Romanian properties can deliver”, added Razvan Iorgu, Managing Director at CBRE Romania.

In the first six months of 2019, Romania’s investment volume cumulated approx. €340 million, a volume similar to the one registered in the first semester of the previous year. With almost half of the total investment volume, the office sector maintained the leading position also held in the first half of 2018.