Sale of Office Buildings in Zagreb: CPI Property Sold Grand Center, and is Selling Hoto Center and Zagrebtower

After recently selling Eurocenter to Atlantic Group, CPI Property Group continues to restructure its real estate portfolio: its subsidiary, Immofinanze, has also sold the Grand Center Office building located on Radnička Street in Zagreb.

In a statement from CBRE, which facilitated this sale, the buyer of the 16,000 square meters of office space was not disclosed, nor was the transaction amount. However, unofficial information suggests that the buyer of the office building Hrvoje Pezić, CEO of HOK Insurance, who also owns Zagreb City Hotels, which has three hotels under the Hilton brand in its portfolio, and it was recently announced that he is building a hotel in Ugljan.

– The sale of Grand Center is the second significant office transaction in Zagreb that CBRE SEE has advised on in the last four months. Thanks to our joint efforts, we have managed to deliver an attractive yield for Immofinanz, demonstrating the resilience of prime office assets in central business districts despite the turbulence in the capital markets occurring globally. This sale not only shows strong investor confidence in the office segment but also highlights the trend of local and regional groups seizing opportunities that arise in the market to increase their presence – said Uroš Grujić, head of the investment properties department in Southeast Europe at CBRE.

They will not sell retail parks

Along with Eurocenter and Grand Center, as we unofficially learn, CPI Property Group has also announced the sale of two more office buildings: Zagrebtower and Hoto Tower.

These are owned by its subsidiary S IMMO AG, which entered the Croatian real estate market in early 2015 when it acquired Eurocenter on Miramarska Street from Erste Bank. In early 2020, it purchased Hoto Tower, and the same year it also took over Zagrebtower. Immofinanze, a subsidiary of CPI Property Group in Croatia, besides the Grand Center office building it has now sold, also owns a number of retail parks operating under the name STOP SHOP. Two years ago, Immofinanze announced that it had purchased 22 locations for the development of STOP SHOP retail parks for approximately 80 million euros. According to data from the website, it has opened 13 such retail parks in Croatia to date.

However, it seems they do not plan to sell them. This can at least be inferred from the response of the spokesperson for CPI Property Group:

– We do not comment on potential deals and have no interest in selling our retail parks – was CPI’s response to the question of commenting on the sale of office buildings in Croatia and whether they intend to dispose of the remaining real estate portfolio in Croatia.

Additionally, CPI Group recently sold Sunčani Hvar to a buyer from Abu Dhabi, Eagle Hills. It is assumed that these transactions are a result of balancing CPI Group’s finances, as after a series of acquisitions, the company must reduce its debt to a desirable level below 40 percent. CPI Property Group is owned by Czech entrepreneur Radovan Vitek, who is listed on Forbes.