Fulga Dinu: Visionary Leader Entrusted With Consolidating CPI’s Portfolio In Romania

Through its takeover of the Immofinanz and S Immo portfolios, CPI Romania has become one of the top three investors on the local real estate market. The company’s assets include numerous office and retail properties, all positioned in very good areas across the country. The leadership style of Fulga Dinu, Country Manager at CPI Romania, has played a decisive role in the company’s success on the local market. Driven by an agile and creative approach, her main priorities are to respond to customers’ needs in the retail sector and to constantly upgrade and refurbish CPI’s office assets in order to provide positive experiences to tenants.

By Anda Sebesi

This interview was featured as the main cover story of the Business Review Magazine December 2023 edition

What can you tell us about yourself as a leader and as a person?

I would say that as a leader I am committed, fair, and that I enjoy making decisions. I like solving problems and finding creative solutions, all in close cooperation with my colleagues. As a person, I am an incurable optimist, always in a good and joyous mood, and I joke a lot.

How would you describe your leadership style?

My leadership style is based on analysis, effectiveness, and efficiency, but also diplomacy. In other words, I believe that a leader of our times should possess deep knowledge of the industry in which they operate, while being able to have a 360-degree view of the consequences of any decision they make. I always consult with my colleagues, who are specialists in their respective fields, and we aim to make the best possible decisions. If there’s something that I truly resent, it’s the futile meetings or the “meetings about nothing” as I call them, so we try to keep things simple and straight to the point.

Has your leadership style changed over time as new generations of employees have joined your team?

I started my career in banking and began to lead teams very early in my professional life. Recently, I went to a gathering with my former colleagues from the banking sector. As people do at these kinds of events, we recounted all sorts of situations we had gone through together, and I realised that not much had changed in my personality since then. So, as a leader today, I still have the same values and principles as I did 20 years ago—and the same sense of humour, I am told—, albeit supplemented by a vaster professional and life experience.

What does CPI Romania represent in terms of its business and portfolio?

CPI Romania has become one of the top three investors on the market following its takeover of the Immofinanz and S Immo portfolios. Our assets include numerous office and retail properties, all located in very good areas. Our office buildings total 365,000 sqm of premium space situated in Bucharest; our retail properties, totalling approximately 270,000 sqm GLA, are located both in Bucharest as well as in other major cities across Romania.

What was 2023 like for the local office market and what will be the key trends in the sector in 2024?

Though we had a moderate start to the year, the Bucharest office market recovered along the way, reaching high leasing volumes. This tendency has also been apparent within our own portfolio, as we’ve managed to sign approximately 50,000 sqm of office space so far which means 15% of the entire leasing activity on the market. At the same time, our state-of-the-art asset management capabilities have paid off, as our office spaces feature the environment and infrastructure that allow our tenants to increase their employees’ physical presence in the office. Our buildings have an attendance level of approximately 70%.

At the same time, in the context of a generally limited new supply, we’ve continued to refurbish part of the office buildings in our portfolio. This year we finalised the remodelling process of myhive Victoria Park, which has resulted in the occupancy rate increasing from 50% at the beginning of the year to over 95% now.

Considering the geopolitical and macroeconomic climates, we believe that creativity and adaptability are becoming essential in the current environment. With this in mind, we have managed to secure a long-term lease with the second private hospital in our portfolio, as well as with one of the biggest interior design brands on the local market. 2024 will be marked by multiple challenges, most of which will be generated by the impact of the conflict at our border and the one in the Middle East, with their respective macroeconomic consequences. However, we remain positive and confident that things will evolve in a positive manner as long as we continue to provide outstanding services and demonstrate flexibility and resilience.

What can you tell us about the retail market’s performance this year and your expectations for 2024?

Shopping centres have had many difficulties over the last few years, especially during the pandemic, but 2023 has been a turnaround year, once again demonstrating the resilience of brick-and-mortar retail. It is one of the sectors that has the biggest experience in reinventing itself, and one that has managed to get stronger in the current economic context.

The business vision must be directed towards the customers and their needs; it is essential to promote positive experiences during each phase of the customer journey—with a special emphasis on the word “experience.” This year, perhaps more than ever, together with our retail partners we focused on creating a special atmosphere in which to immerse the customers, across all our regional shopping centres that cover important parts of Romania: Bucharest, Cluj, Constanta, Iasi, Baia Mare, and Pitesti. This always results in increased loyalty and satisfaction among customers, who can also become brand ambassadors for our shopping centres.

Moving forward on this path, we always strive to follow the latest trends in our refurbishment projects, and we like to work with our retail partners to implement new concept stores and pop-ups that feel more like the novelty showroom style that enhances customer experience, alongside the big department store concepts and marketplaces for food vendors.

Another key aspect we have been working on this year is the continuous effort of renewing and refurbishing our buildings with the latest technologies in order to pursue our long-term commitment to sustainability and come up with viable solutions that have a positive impact on the environment.

All in all, 2023 has brought constant growth and has shown very promising development for the retail sector, with an almost 100% occupancy level in our centres and an ever-growing footfall and sales volume, mainly thanks to the fact that we are constantly adapting to the demands of our customers.

What kinds of investments are required to upgrade the old stock of buildings under ESG principles?

Our office portfolio is quite balanced in terms of the age of the buildings. As a diligent long-term landlord, we constantly upgrade and refurbish our assets. We have made major investments in recent years in four of our office buildings to not only aesthetically modernise them, but also to replace and upgrade the technical and equipment components. Additionally, we constantly intervene across our portfolio with technical solutions that improve resource consumption and reduce any negative outputs.

We are fully committed and aligned with CPI Property Group’s key sustainability principles, meaning promoting a sustainable approach towards real estate development and management; contributing to environmental protection and the development of the local communities in which we operate; pursuing a sustainable business model that allows us to achieve our business objectives without placing an excessive burden on the environment; actively managing our assets to continually improve environmental performance, quality, and resilience; and encouraging proactive contributions from all our employees, tenants, and customers to meet all objectives in line with our principles.

As a result, CPI Romania has implemented a number of measures, including the usage of e-car charging stations, green mobility bike stations, extensive LED usage, the enlargement of green areas, selective recycling, rainwater usage for irrigation—and the list could go on. We are also currently assessing the installation of photovoltaic equipment on our rooftops. On top of the above measures, all our office buildings are BREEAM certified and we are also very active in terms of the social component of ESG and we have finalized the Access4You certification for our entire office portfolio.

What are CPI’s plans on the Romanian market?

For the time being, the main aim is to consolidate our core assets. This means continuing to increase the occupancy rate in our office buildings and maintaining the high occupancy levels in our retail portfolio, while constantly increasing footfall and sales.

We will also continue to refurbish and remodel our assets, where need be, to consolidate their position on the market.

Also part of our strategy for next year is to divest those assets which we do not consider as being part of our long-term holding strategy. In a nutshell, we will continue to maintain our leading position on the market through our highly professional asset management capabilities, dedication to our customers, and observance towards the environment.

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