Ex CB Richard Ellis Romania head sets up new real estate advisory company

Radu Lucianu, the former managing director of CB Richard Ellis in Romania, has set up a new real estate consulting business, Capital Property Advisors, in association with local investment banking advisor Capital Partners.

The new company hopes to complete two transactions worth about EUR 50 million by the end of this year and currently has nine employees, eight of whom have previously worked for CBRE.

“We are working on several transactions and we hope to close two of them by yearend. We will announce the first one no later than early November and the second will be made public in December. Their cumulated value is close to EUR 50 million,” said Lucianu. Capital Property Advisors will mainly focus on offering services related to real estate capital markets, land transactions, valuations and research. A department for office leasing could be added as of the beginning of next year.

According to Doru Lionachescu, chairman of Capital Partners, the Romanian real estate market – like many other local industries – has become strongly polarized. In the last few years it was either those players dealing with the First Home scheme or those selling high-end projects that survived, while those focusing on the mid-market were the worst affected. The two businessmen said during a press conference that they see interest in the local real estate market mainly coming from investors in the Middle East, in countries like Kuwait and Qatar. Such investors are looking into the possibility of investing in high-end office or residential projects as well as the hospitality and private medical services industries.

Lucianu and Lionachescu added that as investors are finding refuge in tangible assets, Romania could see a pick-up in investment flows directed towards the real estate market in the near future.
Lucianu stepped down as managing director of CBRE in May and was replaced by Razvan Iorgu. Capital Property Advisors’ shareholders are Lionachescu, Andrei Diaconescu, Victor Capitanu, Victor Busila – also shareholders of Capital Partners – and Lucianu.