The goal during the reporting period was to rapidly build up the property portfolio again and to strengthen our earning potential; this will continue to be our objective in 2019. This will be accomplished by completing on-going developments, pushing ahead with new development projects and acquiring cash-flow generating assets with potential for the future. Warimpex took an important step along this path in September: after buying back all of the convertible bonds and redeeming the majority of the outstanding bonds, the company took advantage of the prevailing low interest rate levels to optimise our financing structure at the holding level and successfully placed a seven-year bond. This solid financial basis allows the company to act quickly and flexibly when attractive investment opportunities present themselves. In this context, Warimpex secured a hotel property (with around 300 rooms) along with property reserves in Darmstadt at the end of 2018. The transaction was closed in April 2019.

Development projects well on track

At the beginning of October 2018, Warimpex opened the Ogrodowa office building in the Polish city of Łódź. The building is a modern office property offering a total net floor space of 28,000 square metres, located directly in the city centre. It had an occupancy rate of roughly 60 per cent at the end of the year, and negotiations are currently under way with prospective tenants for the remaining space. In addition, the topping-out ceremony for the Mogilska 43 office building in Krakow was celebrated at the beginning of November. The state-of-the-art office building offers a total net floor space of 12,000 square metres spread out over nine storeys. Here as well, 60 per cent of the office space has been let out thus far and was handed over to the tenants in mid-April 2019.

In addition, Warimpex owns a plot of land next to the Chopin Hotel, where the planning of an office building with around 21,000 square metres of space is under way.

Warimpex also owns a development property in Białystok where four office properties will be built in multiple phases. Step one is an office building with roughly 13,000 square metres of office space.

In Russia, the company has very promising property reserves at AIRPORTCITY St. Petersburg. We plan to build two office towers offering around 20,000 square metres of office space.

Warimpex will increasingly use property reserves with good infrastructure that we have owned for quite some time in order to develop the projects that are currently in demand for the given location.