Austria's Investkredit Bank, part of Volksbank group, in the first half of this year released financing worth 100m euros for real estate projects, a value projected for the entire of 2007, amid stepped up investments on the Romanian real estate market.
"(...) One of the major factors that drove the financing budget above last year's estimates was the growth of the domestic real estate market," Claudius Ferentz, a managing director with the Romanian office of Investkredit Bank, which opened early last year, told ZF.
In the period between entering the domestic market and the middle of this year, in total the bank released financing for real estate projects in excess of 200m euros.
"The Romanian market has proved to be much more dynamic than the Polish market for Investkredit Bank. Within a year and a half, the bank signed more financing contracts in Romania than in five years on the Polish market," explained Ferentz.
In addition, in the wake of domestic expansion, Investkredit Bank will open an office outside Bucharest. The office will open in early November and will mainly serve customers from the western part of the country, where corporate lending - investments for companies that develop their business, has registered strong growth in recent years as a result foreign investments.
Investkredit currently grants financing for the acquisition or development of real estate projects, for investments by Romanian and foreign companies and will soon expand in the field financing for company acquisitions. As a rule, the minimum financing volume in the real estate field granted by Investkredit amounts to some 15m euros, while on the corporate segment the minimum volume stands at around 4-5m euros. As the domestic real estate market has matured, the duration of financing contracts has increased from 7 to 20 years within the last three years, while the time it takes to get a loan has reduced.
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