TheWrap: Prague's Plan is Coming!

The smart-building platform Loxone is pushing into Czech rental residential, using Trigema's Fragment project and student housing in České Budějovice and Brno as its operational case studies. The pitch: centralized monitoring of energy, HVAC, security, and access from one platform, with remote temperature control for vacant units. Trigema Rental CEO Rudolf Kraina credits the system with two-sided savings: landlord oversight of central plant, tenant control of their own environment. Loxone is betting that rising energy costs and a thinning pool of qualified building managers are pushing even mid-market residential landlords toward data-driven operations.

Having read a dozen similar stories over the last couple weeks, it makes me realize that we’ve been obsessed over the past couple years on a single question: Which jobs will AI make redundant? The flip-side of that question is equally valid: Which job positions will desperate employers finally be able to fill with robotic agents? In case you forgot what things looked like pre-Covid, the price of labor was skyrocketing and every MD I spoke with back then complained how they couldn’t find people for this or that position. I’m not saying AI isn’t going to kill a bunch of jobs. I’m saying the impact of the transformation is going to be more complex than we realize.

Speaking of slimming down, GARBE Industrial is reorganising its C-suite. Jan Philipp Daun picks up the Development division on top of his existing Investment and JV responsibilities — essentially consolidating all new-business activity under one roof. Andrea Agrusow adds Portfolio Management to her Commercial and RE Management remit, with a mandate to stabilize the existing book. Meanwhile, 17-year veteran Jan Dietrich Hempel will leave the company by year’s end. Michael Marcinek and Maik Zeranski take over as joint board leads, replacing Adrian Zellner. CEO Christopher Garbe frames the changes as a pivot towards sharper client focus. That sounds like corporate speak for a push to return to a ‘lean-and-mean’ mode of business.

Czech rail freight volumes dropped 5.3% in 2025 — a loss of 1.6 billion gross tonne-kilometers from a 29.6 billion base. That’s almost three weeks' worth of activity. Net rail freight is now around 14 billion tkm versus road's 70 billion, a 1:5 ratio. That’s a complete reversal from the 1980s when it was 2:1 in rail's favour. By 2022, rail’s dominance was long-gone, having slipped to 1:4. But the gap is widening. Will increased tolls on smaller roads help the situation? That’s unclear. Transport minister Ivan Bednárik (SPD) appears ready to support ČD Cargo, abandoning plans to carry out an aggressive fleet scrapping programme (4,000 wagons and hundreds of locomotives were originally earmarked for disposal). But ČD Cargo's January volumes fell 7.5% YoY.

Czech industrial stock hit 13.3 million sqm at end-2025 — up 7.7% YoY — with 813,500 sqm completed during the year. But Josef Stanko (Colliers) writes that the real number is what's coming: 1.6 million sqm under construction, a record, with 41% being built speculatively. Another 2.8 million sqm is permitted and ready to break ground. Vacancy crept up to 4.9% (655,400 sqm), +118 bps YoY. Demand recovered sharply in H2 after a sluggish first half dominated by renegotiations. Gross take-up reached 2.1 million sqm for the year — 6.9% above the five-year average. Q4 alone was up 47% YoY. The tenant mix shifted toward manufacturing, with automotive and FMCG accounting for 46% versus 29% for logistics. Prime rents held flat at EUR 7.00–7.50/sqm/month for a sixth straight quarter.

Two Czechoslovak heavyweights are to take a near-50% stake in OT Logistics, Poland's largest port operator. The pricetag of CZK 589 million works out to a valuation of PLN 15.6/share. OTL runs cargo terminals in Gdańsk and Świnoujście. The joint venture between Jaroslav Strnad's SPV Second and J&T-linked Auctor looks to have been timed to perfection as OT Logistics has been struggling of late: revenue halved in 2023 to PLN 321 million, EBITDA collapsed to 70%. OTL’s Kamil Jedynak couldn’t have been more transparent about why he supports the deal: "For us, it’s a huge financial boost through the expected restoration of results stability and liquidity, as well as strengthening in the area of transshipment: the Czech investor’s subsidiaries bring their own commodity volumes, primarily steel semi-finished products.”

Judging by 2025 numbers, German firms are reorienting their trade away from the US and China in 2025 and redirecting volume toward Europe. Czechia was a prime beneficiary last year, with bilateral turnover rising 7% y-o-y to CZK 1.4 trillion. Czechia ran a CZK 119 billion surplus, largely on the back of automotive business (nearly a third of Czech exports to Germany). Destatis data confirms the broader pattern: German exports to the US fell 9.4% through November, while intra-EU exports climbed 4%. Poland overtook China as Germany's top export destination. For Czech real estate, the read-through is straightforward — industrial and logistics demand along the German supply chain isn't going anywhere. If anything, nearshoring and the defence build-up are adding a second engine.

January's CPI print of 1.6% — the lowest since late 2016 — looks great until you consider that government subsidies pulled energy bills down 12.2% y-o-y. Without that intervention, inflation would have come in at 2.0%. That’s far from disastrous, but services inflation remains stuck at +4.7%. I mention that because the Czech Statistics Office says the biggest factor in services inflation is housing: market rents rose 6.3%, imputed rent 5.1%. Banka Creditas chief economist Petr Dufek says the tight property market is still feeding inflation, with demand outpacing supply and rate cuts doing little to cool it.

CPI issued £400 million in green sterling bonds at 6.875%, maturing 2033. That enabled it to buy up €500 million of its own shorter-dated paper — including a chunk of the 7% 2029 notes. The currency play is interesting, because if swapped back to euros, the effective rate comes in around 5.3%. That makes the whole exercise cost-neutral on interest while pushing maturities significantly further out. CPI’s net debt still sits at €10.1 billion, with LTV stubbornly stuck above the 40% target at 48.8%. All of which means its Ba2/BB+ ratings aren't moving up. But the new sterling issuance was 3x oversubscribed. That means institutional appetite for Vítek's credit remains strong despite the high-yield label. With €1.1 billion in disposals done in 2025, CPI is buying breathing room through these sorts of deals.

Czech banks issued CZK 35.5 billion in mortgages in January — down 4.4% month-on-month but up nearly 60% y-o-y. New lending (minus refinancing) hit CZK 27.2 billion across 8,154 loans. Average rates dipped to 4.48%, saving borrowers CZK 770/month versus a year ago. On the other hand, the average loan size jumped 15% to CZK 4.51 million, adding CZK 3,150 to the monthly bill. Net effect: people are borrowing more and paying more. The refinancing wave reached CZK 8.3 billion, double that of January 2025. CPI isn’t the only one dealing with low-rate financing deals maturing. A wall of 3%-era mortgage fixations is now rolling off into today's 4.5% reality.