Immofinanz is one of the most active investors in regional cities of Romania, with a total portfolio in cities outside of Bucharest of 150,000 sqm (rentable space of 4 VIVO! shopping centers outside Bucharest and 1 STOP SHOP in Botosani). Fulga Dinu, the investor`s representative, discusses about the company`s investments in Cluj-Napoca, Constanta, Pitesti, Baia Mare & Botosani.
The investments of Immofinanz in the cities outside Bucharest comprises of the retail properties in the Romanian company portfolio, more precisely VIVO! shopping centers in Cluj-Napoca, Constanta, Pitesti and Baia Mare and STOP SHOP retail park in Botosani. Our retail segment in Romania has a book value of nearly 330 million Euro.
The evolution of the footfall following pandemic
We are seeing more customers returning to our VIVO! shopping centres and the footfall is recovering. Above all, the safety and health of all our visitors and employees in our shopping centers remain our top priority. We have noticed that shopping seems to be more targeted and consumers spend less time inside the centers. But, customers really miss to spend time as much as they like in the shopping centers, and little by little, they come back to their habits.
Expanding the ‘STOP SHOP’ concept
We were always convinced of the attractiveness of our retail park assets as they are convenient local suppliers located in catchment areas of 30.000 to 150.000 people, offer a broad product range with good value for money as well as good transport links and extensive parking facilities. The pandemic once again proved the crisis-resilience of this asset class.
New concepts & trends
We noticed 3 key trends that accelerated during the pandemic, all technology connected. First of all, the customer’s experience, by far the biggest challenge of nowadays’ retailers as they keep improving it and finding the most creative mix of online and offline activities. From this point of view, factors like the smells, sounds, and human interaction that can be found at a store are hard to replace. The second trend is speeding up the process of the purchases made by customers. As consumers spend more time online than ever before, retailers are quickly capitalizing on this trend. Thirdly, the flexibility as retailers keep looking for solutions to deliver as quickly as possible the products ordered online in order to meet increasing expectations.
Immofinanz is a commercial real estate group whose core business is the management and development of retail and office properties in selected countries in Western & Eastern Europe.
In the office sector, the international myhive brand is present in the capital cities of the core countries and the major office locations in Germany. The office portfolio represents approx. 64% of the total portfolio value. The company’s activities in the retail sector are based on the STOP SHOP brand for retail parks and VIVO! for shopping centres which are designed, above all, for secondary and tertiary cities. The retail portfolio is responsible for roughly 35% of the total portfolio value.
In Romania, Immofinanz has a portfolio of 11 office buildings (3 myhive buildings included) and 5 retail properties.
Find out more about the real estate dynamics across the regional cities of Romania: