General Electric Real Estate, the real estate division of the American giant General Electric could invest some 50-100 million euros in the real estate market in Romania by the end of next year, group representatives say.
"We've been surveying the Romanian market for about eight months and we are interested in investing in logistic, residential and retail projects.
"Real estate projects in the major cities of Romania have a vast amount of potential," Brian Delgado, associate director of GE Real Estate Central Europe told ZIARUL FINANCIAR.
The interest of the GE group to develop its business in Romania has increased this year, after one of the group's divisions paid 140 million euros for three financial service companies from the Romanian-American Enterprise Fund. The uninterrupted growth of the real estate market in Romania drove GE representatives to start researching the domestic market.
"Romania is the second-largest market after Poland in Central and Eastern Europe. Unlike Hungary, where most real estate investments were developed in Budapest, major investment in Romania has also been made in big cities other than the capital. We are interested in acquiring projects, especially shopping complexes, as well entering joint ventures with logistic project developers," Delgado specified.
The real estate division of the American group entered Central and Eastern Europe by buying 30% in the Mall in Sofia, the biggest shopping centre in Bulgaria.
GE has invested approximately 220 million euros in Romania over the past year, which includes the investments made through Genpact, a joint venture in which the group owns 40%.
GE Real Estate has invested about 7.6 billion euros on the European markets thus far and owns assets worth 9.7 billion euros in European countries.
GE Real Estate entered the European market 20 years ago and
