TheWrap: A stress test

Slovak developer Immocap has launched a €25 million bond offering to finance its flagship Istropolis project in Bratislava. The secured bonds offer 5.25% annual yield with 3.5-year maturity, available through Slovenská sporiteľňa for €1,000 from September 16 to October 1. The bonds are secured by project land mortgages, with the maximum allowed LTV set at 72.5%. Istropolis is a mixed-use development designed to turn Trnavské mýto into a cultural destination, including an event hall, residential units, offices, and public spaces.

““Goodbye, Prague. Everything must go!” says a sign on Van Graaf’s store on Wenceslas Square. The news was confirmed by Jerome Feltham, who wrote on his LinkedIn feed that Zara will open its largest flagship store in Europe. Van Graaf’s lease wasn’t due to expire yet, so the assumption has to be that an appropriate settlement with the German retailer has been reached. Off-record sources suggest the company wasn’t getting the sort of footfall it had been counting on. Zara is expected to take over the building at the end of the year ahead what’s sure to be a spectacular new fit out.

PPF Real Estate acquired Prague's Hotel Diplomat in Dejvice from Thailand's Rabbit Holdings for €73 million (CZK 1.8 billion). The 400-room four-star property, part of Vienna House network, is the group’s third major Prague hotel acquisition—following Hilton Prague takeover and Four Seasons purchase. The deal came as something of a surprise, as it was expected to be sold to different buyers for €67.5 million.

Logicor has leased the 13,000 sqm Building A at its industrial park in Příšovice to Wassa, a packaging specialist. Logicor Příšovice is located 28 km from Liberec along the D10 motorway and now has just 5,000 sqm left to lease. Wassa is leaving a location in Liberec to move into the former brownfield site. It leases 50,000 sqm of space around the country, developing and producing a industrial packaging for a variety of sectors.

Panattoni has set up a data center division to cover Europe, Great Britain, India and the Middle East. It’s betting that it can leverage its experience in industrial and logistic park development, which includes 24 million sqm of space around Europe. To be based in London, the new division will be led by Richard Wellbrock, who’s spent 20 of his 25 years in real estate developing such facilities. Panattoni’s local director Pavel Sovička says the company has two potential Czech locations: a 100 MW site for neo-Cloud business and another 30 MW site near Prague.

Colliers has brokered an expanded lease for NIKA Logistics at the DMC Pardubice complex. The deal adds over 2,000 sqm to the existing agreement, bringing the tenant’s total space to 13,828 sqm. The site has been developed and built by the industrial specialist Demaco for the investor Star Capital Finance. Demaco partner Jaroslav Kaizr says the new space had to be completed without interrupting NIKA’s ongoing operations at the park. At the same time, Demaco is upgrading the park’s energy infrastructure to accommodate a new 14,500 sqm building, for which it has a valid building permit.

Commercial real estate transactions completed in the first half of the year jumped 51% y-o-y to €5.36 billion. According to Cushman & Wakefield, that’s streets ahead of the paltry 5% growth that Western Europe turned in (totaling €100 billion). What’s interesting is that while industrial transactions have dominated in CEE, Western European action has focused rather on residential and retail assets. The volume of deal growth in Czechia jumped 187% to over €2 billion, cementing its position as the regional leader with 39% of CEE’s total.

Last week, 7R’s new Czech MD Jiří Duchoň was on hand to kick off construction of EQT Park Prague North. The site is located in Lužec nad Vltavou, near the D8 motorway. 7R is developing the project for EQT Real Estate, which also owns over 300,000 sqm of modern logistics space in Ostrava Airport and Nosovice. 7R is liable for permitting, construction and the development of the project, while EQT Real Estate is responsible for its financing. Both partners are involved in leasing. 7R is currently building access roads to the site, including improvements to the interchange that will direct traffic from highway 16 to the brownfield site.

Transport Minister Martin Kupka decided to preserve the Vyšehrad Railway Bridge, bowing to arguments that its demolition would result the "irreversible loss of a significant cultural element." The bridge is in such bad shape that trains are only allowed crawl across the Vltava at 20 km/h on a single track. Back in 1901, the bridge’s construction was criticized for ruining views of Prague Castle. Today, its removal is unthinkable, so it will be taken apart, repaired and returned, albeit with a third track added to it. In the meantime, a temporary structure is to be erected to prevent a complete collapse of rail traffic.

Czech railway planners now envision 768 kilometers of high-speed track to be built along five primary rail corridors. The idea is to connect regional centers with Prague, Brno, and Ostrava within one-hour travel times while integrating into Europe's broader high-speed rail network. The cost: around CZK 1 trillion. The busiest section of the VRT network will be between Běchovice and the Prague East station in Nehvizdy. Berlin traffic will be funneled from Balabenka northward towards a new station in Lovosice.

ThePrime is a proud media sponsor of the annual conference by the Czech Association of Shopping Centers on September 30. This year’s edition is entitled “Where does the money go?” Get your tickets here.

Philip Morris International will double the size of a planned investment into its Kutná Hora factory to over CZK 2 billion. Apparently, its nicotine pouches are even more addictive than anticipated, which means work for an extra 150 employees. Production should begin by the beginning of next year.

Poland's border closure with Belarus following military exercises threatens China's primary European trade route. Nearly 90% of Chinese rail freight to the EU passes through Polish territory, so closures are a serious matter. With the route handling $30 billion in cargo annually—up 10% increase since 2023—Beijing is now applying pressure on Warsaw to reopen the route. Poland is reportedly using its border to demand that Chinese use its influence over Russia regarding Ukraine. Under normal circumstances, up to 90 trains cross the border with Belarus on a daily basis, of which a third are travelling from China.

German investor confidence defied expectations in September, rising to 37.3 from 34.7 despite analysts predicting further decline to 25. The ZEW index stabilized after sharp August falls, with export-oriented sectors—automotive, chemicals, and metals—showing improved outlook. Higher government spending and ECB rate cuts are expected to drive recovery, though US tariff uncertainty persists alongside domestic structural challenges.

Catella Investment Management acquired a 192-unit residential complex in Vienna's Floridsdorf district for its Article 9 fund CER III—15,900 sqm of gross living space with apartments averaging 83 sqm and ranging from 53-127 sqm. The 2014-built complex features energy class B rating, district heating (50% renewable sources), and individual balconies or gardens for each unit. Located 30 minutes from Vienna's center via public transport, the property represents CER III's strategy of targeting affordable housing in European growth markets—the fund now manages approximately €1.0 billion in assets.

Retry

Czech unemployment rose to 4.5% in August from 4.4% in July. The 333,624 jobless represents roughly 4,000 more people than July, while firms offered 95,117 vacancies. Regional disparities persist: Ústí nad Labem leads with 6.7%, Moravian-Silesian follows at 6.3%, while Prague joblessness sits at 3.5%.

ČEPS plans more than CZK 80 billion worth of investment into the Czech Republic’s transmission networks, including the construction of redundant transmission lines, new substations, and the replacement of aging infrastructure. It claims this is the only way to handle the huge growth of power consumption that’s predicted in coming years by electrification and the phase-out of coal.