Arete Invest reports CZK 92m profit in 2016

Arete Invest reported a CZK 92m profit and a 25.7-percent gross yield for its opened subfund Arete Invest CEE II in 2016. Deloitte audited the results. The fund was established in 2014 and its chairman, Lubor Svoboda, says it moved its focus to Slovakia, which offers higher yields than the booming Czech economy. In 2016, Arete sold the residential portfolio in its first Arete Invest CEE subfund, which included hundreds of flats, to an international financial investor. In February 2016, the company launched Arete Invest CEE II focusing on industrial property. The fund’s target is €200m in five years, with yields between 11 to 16 percent annually. Actual revenues by far surpassed the target in 2016. Arete acquired five logistics areas in the Czech Republic last year in Uherské Hradiště, Lovosice and Písek, offering 35,000 sqm of fully leased space and a potential to develop an additional 29,000 sqm. Arete purchased two logistic areas in Slovakia in this year, bringing the overall leasable space in the subfund to 80,000 sqm. In April, it bought Prologis Park Nové Mesto