Back from the brink

Agata Kłapeć, ‘Eurobuild Central & Eastern Europe’: You have recently sold a plot in the Romanian city of Tîrgu Mure, originally earmarked for a EUR 80 mln, 34,000 sqm mall, as well as the 22,000 sqm Kragujevac Plaza shopping centre in Serbia. Does this signify a gradual withdrawal from the SEE market? Ran Shtarkman, Plaza Centers’ CEO: We do not plan on exiting any of the markets we operate in. We have a very focused strategy, which embraces the development of shopping and entertainment centres wherever we can. This is our core business. However, if we see that there is an opportunity for us to sell the land we hold in those countries, and if we believe that for some reason developing a shopping centre in those places wouldn’t be possible – for instance, because of a lack of financing, too much competition on the local market, or simply because at that particular moment our priorit