Immoeast announced another acquisitions of five office and retail properties in Prague and Brno, Czech Republic. Total rentable space of these properties is more than 100,000 sqm, with approx. 2/3 in the office segment. The investment totals EUR 210m, implying on average EUR 1,900/sqm. The acquisition includes office property in Prague (Jungmannova), Brno (Brno Business Park I. and II.), mixed-use building in Brno (OC Petrov) and large retail project in Prague, which is scheduled to be completed by 2010. Overall Immoeast’s portfolio comprises 79 properties with 1.29m sqm of rentable area in the Czech Republic and accounts for 16% of the total Immoeast’s portfolio.
Our view: We see continuous expansion of Immoeast into regional cities as positive, given that office and retail yields in Prague compressed to 5.75% and 5.25% respectively. Note however that more and more real estate investors are following the same approach and prices continues to rise, which can be seen from reached average price of more than EUR 1,900/sqm. At the beginning of the year Immoeast acquired modern office space in Prague for EUR 2,200/sqm. We see paid price in-line with other similar transactions in the range of EUR 2,000 – 2,500/sqm, however we lack more significant upside potential from properties in Prague as yields has compressed to relatively low levels compared to Western cities, where average yields in 4Q06 reached 5.02% and 4.62% for office and retail respectively.