Decathlon, the world's largest sports retailer, is now entering Serbia. Partnering with BIG CEE group, the retailer plans to open its first store in Q2 2019 at Big Fashion Park Belgrade.

Ikea’s presence is growing rapidly in the SEE region. Construction is underway at the second store in Bucharest and there are further plans for new developments. Viviana Pavel, Real Estate and Development Manager at Ikea South East Europe shared her thoughts on the retail market, e-commerce and the company’s regional expansion.

Cushman & Wakefield has signed an exclusive arrangement with CBS International as its affiliate in Serbia and Montenegro. The former CBRE affiliate has been rebranded to Cushman & Wakefield CBS International.

GTC closed 2017 with a €105 million development profit. The company acquired Belgrade Business Center (17,700 sqm) in September 2017 and the Cascade office building (4,200 sqm) in Bucharest in August 2017 for a total sum of €46 million. GTC presented its 2017 financial results.

Hungarian investor and developer Wing has acquired two office buildings in Sofia, Bulgaria for a total of €9.85 million. The DXC Office Building has 8,000 sqm GLA, while the BULMAG Office Building offers 770 sqm of leasable space.

The EBRD and IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, are boosting the retail sector in Serbia, Montenegro and FYR Macedonia with €164 million in loans to the investment firm Hystead.

According to the latest analysis prepared by the Capital Markets team Cushman & Wakefield, investment volumes in Central and Eastern Europe reached nearly €13 billion in 2017. All CEE countries grew at a similar rate and maintained their share of the overall regional volume. Despite political risk perceptions, Poland grew most rapidly at 9% y-o-y from approx. €4.6 billion to €5 billion, which was the highest result recorded in the last 10 years. 2018 has already seen the benefit of deals that slipped from late 2017 with the investment volume in Q1 2018 likely to exceed €3 billion.

NEPI Rockcastle published its results for 2017. The total value of direct property portfolio owned and managed by NEPI Rockcastle exceeded €5 billion (including joint-ventures). Acquisitions and developments finalised during 2017 totalled €947 million, with 339,800 sqm GLA added.

Colliers International, Automotive Cluster Bulgaria and Pwc conducted a second consecutive survey of the automotive industry in Bulgaria. There are approximately 130 automotive companies in the country, producing components for top international automotive brands. These are predominantly Tier 1, 2 and 3 suppliers and include producers, which service other industries as well.

In 2017 approx. 90% of the total investment volumes in the commercial real estate were recorded in retail and HTL on the Croatian market. Most of the investment and development activity came from the investors already present on the market. Newcomers were mostly focused on distressed/value-add or brownfield opportunities in the HTL sector. Retail and HTL will remain the most active sectors in terms of investment and development volumes in 2018, Colliers projects.