Alfa Developments, fully-owned by Bulgarian industrial group Alfa Finance Holding, has formally notified the Commission for the Protection of Competition (CPC) of its intention to acquire 75 per cent in property developer Landmark, Alfa Finance said in a statement on March 17. The proposed deal needs CPC approval to go through.
The seller is Bridgecorp, owned by Landmark managers Richard McDonald and Tanya Kosseva-Boshova, who acquired the company last year for 210 million euro in the biggest re-sale transaction on the Bulgarian real estate market. Bridgecorp's shareholders will continue to hold a 25 per cent stake. Alfa Developments is planning to expand the portfolio with new acquisitions of assets in Bulgaria and on the Balkans.
“This is an acquisition of key importance for Alfa Developments for two reasons – on the one hand, the company will balance its project “basket” with profit-generating properties, on the other, the ongoing partnership and exchange of know how with sellers will firmly position us as leader on the Bulgarian real estate market,” Alfa Developments chief executive Elitsa Panayotova said in the statement.
“We have ambitious plans for the future – we are planning to acquire new office and commercial properties, and this will actually be the major goal of our strategic partnership with Alfa Developments," Richard McDonald said.
Landmark's portfolio features 22 properties in Bulgaria and one in Turkey – with a total leasable area of 92 300 sq m and development land of 61 400 sq m. Some of Landmark's assets include office buildings in Sofia and Varna, a retail park in Plovdiv, a development land, a stake in a golf project, and a university building in Istanbul. Some of the major tenants of the buildings are Post Bank, Nova TV, Deutsche Bank, DHL, IBM, CMS Cameron McKenna, BawMax, Deloitte, EVN, Uniqa, Alexandra Video.
Alfa Developments is one of Bulgaria's biggest companies focusing on the development and management of large-scale investment projects in the real estate sector. It is now developing more than 500 000 sq m of housing, office and commercial areas and manages more than 300 000 sq m of office areas. Among its biggest investment projects are the Panorama City in Varna and Alfa Park in Sofia.
Alfa Developments is part of Alfa Finance Holding, which manages assets worth more than one billion euro. The group's chairman and chief executive, Ivo Prokopiev, is also a majority shareholder in Economedia publishing group, the parent company of Sofia Echo Media, the publisher of The Sofia Echo.
Richard Macdonald has more than 10 years of experience in acquiring and managing investment portfolios of real estate assets in Great Britain. Tanya Kosseva-Boshova was partner at Colliers International Southeast Europe for eight years, including four years as managing director of the Bulgarian office.
