Tempting tenants

Experts differ as to whether buying out leases is a sign of a maturing or difficult market but admit with one voice that they are on the increase. The spectacular deal between the Von der Heyden Group, GE Capital Golub and PricewaterhouseCoopers in Warsaw, is the highest profile agreement of this type yet in Poland. Many developers must have envied GE Capital Golub when they advertised on their construction site billboard, that PricewaterhouseCoopers would be making International Business Centre their new headquarters with 8,000 sqm. However, before they could do this, the developer had to pay millions of dollars, (the exact amount isn't being divulged), to buy out PwC's lease from the Von der Heyden Group. How many firms would go this far to attract a tenant to their building? "Not many at the moment but developers are analysing the profitability of buy-outs, which is bound to lead to more of them," says Jerzy Wysocki, Head of the Commercial Agency, Knight Fran