Tishman bets on Bulgaria as base for its Balkan expansion
CANNES, France (Reuters) – Private US real estate firm Tishman International is looking to become Bulgaria’s biggest property developer and is eyeing investment opportunities elsewhere in the Balkans, the company said yesterday. «Bulgaria will be our initial stronghold and then we will look to expand in the southeastern (European) region,» Alan Levy, chairman of Tishman International, told Reuters in an interview at the MIPIM property trade fair. Julian Edwards, who oversees Tishman’s Bulgarian interests, said the company was eyeing a number of large projects in Romania, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and Serbia. Los Angeles-based Tishman International has built, developed and managed more than 35 million square feet (3.25 million square meters) of assets, including three of the tallest office complexes on the US West Coast, Levy said. Its client base comprises mainly US insurance companies and pension funds and since 1986 it has been channeling most of its resources into developing and managing real estate in Europe. The company’s biggest commitment was the London office market. It bought Plantation Place in the City of London financial district a year ago for 527 million pounds ($1.02 billion) – at the time the largest-ever single UK building acquisition, before the sale earlier this year of London’s «Gherkin Tower.» But increasingly the firm was shifting its attention eastward, Levy said. Having cut its teeth in the Czech Republic by developing retail property in the early 1990s, Tishman is now the only US developer established in Bulgaria and on track to be the biggest commercial property developer in the country, Edwards said. Among the projects Tishman in which has invested were a 1.8 million sq.ft (165,000 sq.m.) office, hotel and logistics center near Sofia’s main airport – a development concept the company had already managed successfully in Los Angeles, Levy said. «The concept is that companies can have offices by the airport, fly in staff from elsewhere and stay in a hotel right there. It’s very convenient from a business perspective,» he said. Outsourcing Levy said Tishman was betting on Bulgaria expanding as one of Europe’s premier outsourcing centers because the country had a high concentration of IT workers and linguistic schools. US computer company Hewlett-Packard Co has already established a regional hub there. Underpinning Tishman’s confidence in Bulgaria was the belief that one of the European Union’s newest members was set to follow a well-worn path trod by other EU accession countries. «Bulgaria today is where the Czech Republic was 10-12 years ago in its regentrification and coming out of the communist era,» Levy said. For similar reasons, Levy said Tishman was now eyeing potential investment opportunities in Romania, Serbia and FYROM.
