Hungary’s Indotek Group Agrees Purchase of Belgrade Office Portfolio

Office Market

The GTC FortyOne II building, part of the Belgrade office portfolio acquired by the Hungarian-American Indotek Group.

The regional developer and investor GTC has agreed a deal to sell its Belgrade office portfolio to the Hungarian investor Indotek Group. The proposed acquisition price is EUR 267.6 million.

The agreement will cover the sale of 11 buildings within five business parks located in the New Belgrade business district and totaling 122,000 sqm: Green Heart, FortyOne, Belgrade Business Center, 19 Avenue, and GTC House.

Once completed in the third quarter of 2021, the sale will become one of the most significant real estate transactions in the last five years on the CEE market, according to GTC.

“The sale of 11 premium class office buildings in Belgrade is a bold move which will allow us to complete our development cycle in Serbia and start a fundamentally different chapter on this market,” comments Yovav Carmi, president of the management board of GTC.

“The sale of the Serbian portfolio could not be timelier as we are currently in the process of redefining market strategy and advancing our operations to be more sustainable and futureproof. This is a benchmark transaction in Belgrade demonstrating liquidity post-COVID,” he continues.

“We will be selling some of our assets and relocating the free cash flow for the development of brand-new, ambitious projects in Serbia and other markets of CEE,” Carmi adds.

Pioneer

GTC was a pioneer developer in entering Belgrade, which is now seen as a major emerging CEE development market.

“GTC will become one of the first companies to complete the development circle in Serbia, from land acquisition and construction, through years of enjoying the high rent levels and free cash flow, to the exit on respectable terms,” the company notes.

“This opportunity will help re-balance the company’s portfolio towards higher-rated countries including Poland and Hungary while the buyer, a Hungarian investor, the Indotek Group, is happy to enter the Serbian market with such a strong portfolio,” adds GTC.

Indotek Group sees the acquisition deal as a way of diversifying its portfolio, heavily weighted towards the Hungarian market.

“Indotek Group has been present in its domestic market for almost 25 years. In the last decade, the company also started to expand outside of Hungary, resulting in Indotek Group being active in 10 countries today,” says Dániel Jellinek, founder and CEO of Indotek Group

“We have been looking for the opportunity to enter the Serbian market for a long time, and with the current transaction, we are able to strengthen our position in the region significantly. I am particularly proud that our first transaction in Serbia makes us one of the most dominant participants in the Belgrade office market,” he adds.

GTC has recently invested EUR 160 million acquiring the Ericsson Headquarters and the Siemens Evosoft Headquarters in Budapest. In addition, the developer is planning GTC X and Blaze in Belgrade. GTC says it has a development pipeline of 325,000 sqm of office and retail properties in CEE capital cities.

As with other Hungarian developer-investors, the Hungarian-American Indotek Group is also increasingly active in the region, with a portfolio of 300 properties, including office buildings, shopping centers, hotels, industrial/logistic, and residential properties. The group is seeking further investment opportunities in the Central, Eastern, and Southern European markets.

This article was first published in the Budapest Business Journal print issue of June 18, 2021.

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