- GTC bought-out its minority partner in City Gate, its landmark office building in Bucharest.
- At the same time, Romtelecom signed a five-year lease prolongation with GTC at City Gate; this transaction constitutes the largest lease transaction on the Bucharest office market in 2016 to date.
GTC successfully streamlined the ownership structure of City Gate, one of its landmark office buildings in Bucharest by buying-out its minority partner, Bluehouse Capital and now owns 100% of the equity. At the same time, Romtelecom (recently renamed to Telekom Romania), the largest Romanian fixed and mobile telecom operator, signed a five-year lease prolongation at City Gate. After a diligent evaluation process Romtelecom decided to maintain its 13,000 sqm headquarters in City Gate until 2022 due to the building’s high quality and attractive central location.
City Gate was initially developed as a joint-venture between GTC and Bluehouse Capital, and is still one of the most prestigious office buildings in the central business district of Bucharest. It was also the first office project in Bucharest to have received a partial LEED Gold certification confirming the high degree of energy efficiency of this property.
“These two transactions demonstrate GTC’s strong position as a leading real estate player on the Romanian office market. They are also fully in line with our overall strategy of streamlining the ownership structure of our existing portfolio on an opportunistic basis and further improving cash flows through active asset management” said Thomas Kurzmann, CEO.