Opening the path of the mother company, Erste Bank1, IMMORENT expanded its services to the CEE region and soon became the no. 1 in real estate leasing. IMMORENT boasts 12 subsidiary or associated companies in nine countries: the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and – since 2004 – also in Bulgaria and Romania.
Another firm should be launching its operations in Montenegro before the year is out.
IMMORENT is now setting about expanding the „more” services with regard to real estate in the CEE countries, such as project development and building management, banking on driving growth by means of a more expansive product range.
Opening up the growth markets of Romania
IMMORENT Romania, the youngest member of the Group was founded in November 2004 and became operational at the beginning of 2005. In the first half-year of 2005 the company recorded a new leasing business volume of EUR 7 million. The most important business field was constituted out of equipment leasing, since the Romanian market leans very much towards movable property, just like other Eastern European countries. The strategy followed by IMMORENT Romania is to extend its operations into the real estate leasing segment, and intensive preparations are already underway for the first project development deals.
Harald Trinkl, General Manager at IMMORENT Romania: “Our main objective in Romania is to become the market leader in real estate leasing. We believe that there is a growing need for leasing services in real estate field and we intend to satisfy that need by offering full services at IMMORENT´s international standards. In addition to financing we will also provide project development and building management. Harald Trinkl has a large experience in the real estate leasing, as before coming to IMMORENT Romania, he set up the local branches of IMMORENT in the Czech Republic and Slovakia which he transformed in market leaders.
Strength through real estate leasing & more all around CEE
In its core business of real estate leasing, IMMORENT beats all of the pretenders to the throne of top Austrian leasing firm in CEE with new business of almost EUR 170 million (+8.4% compared to the previous year) and a market share of 32%. Even in the segment of equipment leasing (including vehicles) the volume of new business has developed very positively recording a figure of EUR 102 million (+23% in comparison to the previous year).
A feature of the CEE leasing business carried out by the IMMORENT subsidiaries is the „dominance” of real estate. Real estate leasing has traditionally been the core business of IMMORENT. While Austrian leasing firms in the CEE record roughly 19% of their new leasing business in the real estate segment, this ratio for IMMORENT is almost 63%.
IMMORENT carries out its operations in a joint venture cooperation with the most important savings banks in South-Eastern Europe: Tyrol Savings Bank, in Italy, Styrian and Carinthian Savings Banks in Slovenia and Croatia, Styrian Savings Bank in Serbia.
The volume of new business recorded by IMMORENT in the first semester of 2005 prove that it has been by far the most active company in its field:
Country
Volume of new business in the first semester of 2005
Czech Republic: EUR 152 mil (55% market share)
Slovakia: EUR 9 mil (47% market share)
Croatia: EUR 61 mil
Slovenia: EUR 24 mil
Serbia: EUR 19.5 mil (20% market share)
Bulgaria: EUR 14 million
Romania: EUR 7 mil
