Aurec acquires PRS tower in Warsaw

The 180-apartment residential tower close to Metro Wilanowska is to be added to Aurec’s LivUp long-term residential brand.

JLL advised the investor on the purchase of the property. Baker & McKenzie acted as the legal advisor to the seller and Dentons Europe Dąbrowski & Partners for the buyer.

Puławska 186 was purchased under a forward funding model, with the buyer of the property also the party financing the investment process. Matexi Polska will continue to run the development side of the project until its completion at the turn of 2021/22. The company has already completed the Pereca 11 residential project in Warsaw's Wola district for Catella RE – the first Polish building entirely purchased by a foreign fund for the institutional rental market.

Aurec Capital, meanwhile, will also be launching its 90-apartment Jagiellońska 36 project under the same brand in the city’s Praga district in the autumn.

“Our strategy involves the selection of locations that will be attractive in terms of commuting and thus provide easy access to the city's main business centres. We also try to ensure that the buildings we choose are embedded in the existing and well-functioning urban fabric, which we want to co-create through our activities. This transaction is a proof of our belief in the development potential of the PRS in Poland. It also strengthens our position as the leading operator on the rental market in Warsaw, since our goal is to achieve a portfolio size of thousands of units in major cities in Poland,” commented Roee Shamir, the managing director of Aurec Capital Poland.

“International investors must operate using a build-to-rent model, because there is a shortage of standing assets or portfolios of the scale that could become the subject of transactions. However, they need knowledge of the local market's particularities, which can be provided by a local business partner. At the same time, the local partner can make use of stable capital resources to finance the project development. There are two paths: it can be done by building up a platform locally, which remains in the hands of the investor, supporting all the investment stages; or through cooperation with Polish development companies at the implementation stage and operators supporting the commercialisation process,” added Maximilian Mendel, the head of residential investment at JLL.