Austrians have dominated the Romanian real estate market in recent years. Amid acquisitions worth above 400 million euros so far and planned projects of around 500 million euros, Austrian investments made on the domestic real estate market could reach one billion euros soon. The first big transactions were sealed in 2003, when two Austrian investment funds, CA Immo and Europolis, purchased the most important office buildings at that time, Opera Center and Europe House. Since then, Austrian investment funds have been involved on all the segments of the real estate market.
Opera Center, one of the first business centres in Bucharest, was sold for some 26 million euros by CA Immo in the first half of 2003. Later on, the Austrians along with Avrig 35, a company controlled by businessman Alexandru Hergan, built the Charles de Gaulle Plaza building, which they sold to Accession Fund investment fund, controlled by Germany's GLL Real estate company, for 80 million euros this year. This is the biggest real estate deal concluded on the domestic market. CA Immo's biggest acquisition on the domestic market was that of Bucharest Business Park building, for some 60 million euros, in 2005. Europe House, also known as the Orange building, was in its turn bought by an Austrian investor, Europolis, for almost 30 million euros, in 2003.
After acquiring Europe House office building, Europolis also got involved in the logistic project worth 65-75 million euros the Cefin company is developing. In the wake of the acquisition, the Austrians announced they would invest a further 70 million euros to expand the logistic park.
Immoeast, the unit handling the Central and East European operations of the biggest Austrian fund, Immofinanz, officially entered the Romanian market in 2004, when it took over Iride Business Park for 63 million euros. Since then, Immoeast has partic