Today, the ARETE investment and real estate group released information about the earnings of its second fund in 2019. The total cumulative gross return on the fund, focused on investment into industrial real estate in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, reached 115%, while the gross return for the previous year was 8.9%. The value of assets at the end of 2019 exceeded CZK 2.4 billion and the fund will grow further in 2020 thanks to its halls nearing completion. A detailed inspection of the results is now being finalized by the auditors of Deloitte Audit. This year, ARETE group opened up a third fund to qualified investors. In addition to industrial real estate, this fund also invests in new construction.
“The past year was very successful for us. After four years of operation on the Czech and Slovak market, the second fund has achieved considerable success – we managed to increase the assets in our portfolio and further diversify it and maintain extraordinary returns for our investors,” said Lubor Svoboda, one of the co-founders of the ARETE group. “In the coming years, we want to keep bringing exceptional returns to our investors. And since the second fund was closed last year to new investors, we focused on preparing a completely new, third fund. We opened it to investors this year and we have already seen investments worth tens of millions of EUR. A significant advantage of the new fund is the option to purchase under better market conditions, which can significantly increase the value of investments in the coming years.”
Robert Ides, the other co-founder of the ARETE group, says, “We have data from an independent evaluation of the earnings from our real estate funds in the Czech Republic as of 31 December 2019. Our ARETE group fund is earning our investors the highest appreciation over the long run.” The ARETE INVEST CEE II sub-fund lords over the overall long-term statistics – it has had the highest average annual return for the whole term of its existence (20.55%). At the same time, it has one of the lowest ratios of bank loans to assets among all the evaluated funds of qualified investors. “At this time, we think our strategy of lower indebtedness, which has been applied in our new fund, is an unequivocal competitive advantage for us,” says Robert Ides.
In 2020, a third fund of the ARETE group opened up to investors. This fund is not only going to invest in developed industrial real estate in Central and Eastern Europe but will also build new logistics and manufacturing buildings. The target value of the portfolio should approach CZK 12 billion and it includes over 600,000 m2 of premises for rent and more than 300,000 m2 of lots for further construction. “At this point, our investment evaluation in the Czech Republic and Slovakia includes real estate totaling more than CZK 8 billion. We consider some of them to be very interesting,” adds Lubor Svoboda.
