A Hundred million-worth Czech Investment in Poland: Accolade Enlarges its Industrial Zone in Lublin
The Czech real estate group Accolade is investing in expanding the industrial zone in Lublin, Poland, where as much as 73,500 square metres of industrial area will gradually become available. The first phase of building the industrial zone is almost completed. Tenants operating in the manufacturing and logistics industries have leased almost 20,000 square metres of newly built prime industrial area. The Polish mBank has committed to provide a credit facility of up to EUR 28 million.
“The Accolade Group invests in another two industrial parks in Poland, in addition to Lublin,” says Milan Kratina, CEO of the Accolade Group. “We have identified attractive sites in ten large Polish cities which, thanks to their strategic location and availability of skilled workforce, offer superb opportunities to new projects in the areas of manufacturing, logistics and ecommerce. Many of our current tenants are involved in the automotive and engineering industries and we want to add companies from other industries such as food manufacturers and distributors, or plastics manufacturers, to our tenant portfolio. The city of Lublin is one of the most attractive places for investors within the entire region,” adds Kratina.
“We are very satisfied to have the opportunity to provide bank financing for the project in Lublin. Thanks to close cooperation with Accolade we were able to work out a financing structure which is suitable for all parties. We highly value professionalism of Accolade in their relationship with the financing institution and will be happy if they approach us with their upcoming transactions in Poland,” says Małgorzata Lipowska, Project Manager in Structured and Mezzanine Finance Department of mBank.
Accolade’s new tenants in Lublin include Inter Cars, which wants to lease 4,370 sq. m., Rohlig Suus Logistics with 2,100 sq. m., Nałęczowska Spółka Handlowa, the Alibi supermarket operator, with 1,400 sq. m., Eurocash Serwis with 3,000 sq. m., and CEGA with 2,100 sq. m.
“There are nine universities with more than 86,000 students in the Lublin Region. Lublin is a traditional Polish city. Before the post-WWII shift of the borders, Lublin used to be one of the most important cities of the central region of the Polish state and a traditional centre of Polish academic life,” says Lukáš Répal, Accolade’s Regional Director in Poland.
The Industrial Park in Lublin is a modern manufacturing, distribution and technological complex. It is conveniently located in the east of the country in the ninth largest Polish city with a population of 350,000. The zone will be easily accessible from the S12, S17 and S19 motorways connecting Lublin with Warsaw, Ukraine and the north and south of the country. The park is part of the EURO-PARK Mielec special economic zone.
mBank
mBank provides innovative solutions in mobile and web banking in the Czech Republic. With 600,000 clients, mBank is already the fifth largest bank in the CR. In December 2014 mBank rolled out an innovative mobile app created precisely to its users’ needs; the app received a golden award in an independent test carried out by the TyInternety.cz server citing user friendliness and speed. Besides private and savings accounts, mBank offers credit cards, loans and mortgages. The bank operates in the Czech Republic as an organizational unit of the mBank S.A., member of the Commerzbank Group. Put together, mBank serves over five million clients in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland.
The Accolade Group
The Accolade Group has so far completed eight large industrial projects in the Czech Republic, including the building for Alpha Corporation at Týniště nad Orlicí, BWI and DHL operations in Cheb, manufacturing buildings of Ideal Automotive, Leoni and KION at Ostrov near Stříbro. In addition, Accolade provided land to build industrial facilities for Simoldes Plasticos at Rychnov nad Kněžnou and industrial halls for Steelcase at Ostrov near Stříbro.
Accolade Industrial Real Estate Investment Fund
The Accolade Group recently founded an industrial real estate investment fund. At present more than fifty institutional and individual investors, among them business owners, top managers, advisory companies’ partners, lawyers, family offices or pension funds, invested into the fund. The fund currently owns or will very soon own buildings fully leased to Alpha Corporation, Ideal Automotive, Leoni, KION Group, DHL and BWI.