Kochanski Zieba & Partners has advised Echo Polska Properties N.V. on its acquisition of seven office buildings with almost 112,000 square meters of total gross leasing area from Echo Investment S.A. The sellers were advised by Weil Gotshal & Manges. The total value of the sale amounts to almost EUR 265 million.
The sold properties are the O3 Business Campus in Cracow (Phase I, II and III), Tryton Business House in Gdannsk, A4 Business Park in Katowice (Phase III), and Symetris Business Park in Lodz (Phase I and II). Closure of the deal is conditional on the satisfaction of certain conditions, including full completion of the developments and full commercialization of the buildings.
The sales are part of Echo Polska Properties' execution of its right of first offer to purchase ten properties developed by Echo Investment. According to KZP, the Tryton, O3 Phase I, A4 Business Park III, and Symetris I buildings are ready while the completion of O3 Phase II and Symetris II is planned for the end of the year, and O3 phase III will be ready in 2017.
Echo Polska Properties is a real estate investment fund that follows the REIT formula and invests in commercial office, retail, and industrial properties throughout Poland. The company, established by Echo Investment S.A. and Redefine Properties of South Africa, is publicly traded on exchanges in Luxembourg and Johannesburg. Its current portfolio that includes six office and ten retail projects totaling 446,400 square meters of gross leasing area, located in eleven major cities across Poland.
The KZP team was led by Partner Kamil Osinski and Senior Associate Andrzej Zajac and included Partner Szymon Galkowski, Senior Associate Klaudia Szymannska-Rutkowska, Associates Marcin Rzysko and Katarzyna Kroolikiewicz, and Junior Lawyer Malwina Stajniak.
"We are very pleased to have been able to work on this exciting transaction with Echo Polska Properties. It has been a good year for real estate in Poland," said Kamil Osinski. "As a firm we have worked on EUR 1.8 billion of commercial real estate transactions so far this year. Putting that into context, the first half of 2016 has seen EUR 2 billion invested in the Polish commercial property market according to CBRE. Based on this figure and assuming a monthly value of the transaction market being EUR 330 million, you could say that Kochanski Zieba & Partners’ Real Estate Sector Practice has worked on almost 50% of Polish commercial real estate transactions so far this year."
The Weil team consisted of Partner Pawel Zdrort and Associates Filip Uzieblo, Piotr Fedorowicz, Tomasz Bakowski, and Karolina Janus.
Image Source: o3businesscampus.com.pl
