print ]Hospodářské noviny: Interview with Mgr. Ladislav Dvořák, Managing Director of CIMEX INVEST Ltd.
What will be the future course of developer business in Prague now that the investment market has been unbalanced by the mortgage crisis? Will the Czech Republic, too, suffer from the crisis?
I don’t think so. Certainly not as much as the USA. Nevertheless, in some fields the impact is to be felt, especially the opening of price scissors between certain types of real estate. We assume that premises is what is going to set the price – both purchase cost and rent. Another factor is the quality of the service that the real estate has got to offer. In other words, the customers are going to choose and compare even more carefully than now. And money is going to be just one of the factors.
You have bought the Skanska headquarters for 750 million Czech crowns. The 1200 Skanska employees, who had worked in the two buildings, are to be gradually replaced by new leaseholders. It will surely not be easy to occupy 24,000 quadrate meters in a relatively short time. Actually it is going to be one of the largest migrations in greater Prague. Is there any interest?
The interest is surprisingly high. I must admit it is a pleasant surprise for us. This experience is one of the reasons why we are so optimistic about the development of Prague real estate market over the next few months. To fill our Garden Eleven Business Center with new leaseholders, we have even decided to hold a kind of internal selection procedure. We have talked long about what criteria to choose. In the end we agreed that there are so many potential leaseholders who are interested that we shall select them not just by price and length of the lease, as is the usual way, but also by the reputation of the companies. We are convinced that it will pay back to us in the end – after all, every business center has the reputation of the companies who are in it.
However, in the last few years you have considerably enlarged your portfolio of office buildings and allegedly you are going to invest five billion crowns in them in the years to come. Is this still your plan, or are you going to reconsider or postpone it, given the unbalance of the real estate market?
We have no such intention. As I have said, we remain convinced that you can always find an attractive building that is worth investing in – the former Skanska buildings are a proof of this. You just have to find suitable project, which is something we are intent upon, and to be willing to pay a reasonable price for it.
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