GTC’s chairman, Eli Alroy mentioned for Reuters that GTC should keep on adding new projects, in particular in Polish secondary cities including Gdansk, Czestochowa and Katowice (total of 10 under construction in 6 cities in 2007), Romania and Bulgarian and Ukraine, where the company plans to build commercial assets in cities above 1m inhabitants, i.e. Kiev, Lvov, Donieck, Odessa and Dnipropetrovsk. GTC is also positive on the Polish real estate market given falling vacancy levels and rising rents while the growth should reach some 10% p.a.
Our view:
We definitely continue to support the company’s expansionary plans into Ukraine, Romana and Bulgaria, which are characterized by imbalance between supply and demand of quality real estate assets. Also, we give credit to GTC’s focus on Polish secondary cities, which are benefiting from growing demand from larger companies reallocating back office operations as well as local companies. The trend of falling vacancy has been showing for last several quarters while we have also identified rising rents in particular in Polish secondary cities.