Profit at CPI, Radovan Vitek’s real estate company, increased 243 percent year on year in the first quarter to EUR 381 million (roughly CZK 9.4 billion). The company also included for the first time the earnings of Austrian real estate group Immofinanz, which it gained control of this year.
“The strategic acquisitions and sales made by the group were successful,” CPI CEO Martin Němeček said in the report. He said the company sees consistently strong demand for real estate. “There are solid trends in rents and occupancy across our portfolio,” he added.
CPI is a Central European leader in real estate. It has secured this position through its control of Immofinanz. At the end of January, it offered to buy back Immofinanz shares at €23 per share with a dividend. At the end of February, it announced that it had secured more than half of the company.
It now controls 76.86 percent of the Austrian firm. In total, CPI has paid about EUR 2.4 billion (CZK 59.3 billion) for Immofinanz shares since last year.
CPI also wants to gain control of another Austrian real estate firm, S Immo. It owns 16.1 percent of that company, while Immofinanz has a 26.5 percent stake. Altogether, the Vitek group controls 42.6 percent. However, the articles of association limit its voting rights. CPI, therefore, wants to try to abolish the provision at today’s general meeting of shareholders, according to which no shareholder of the Austrian company, regardless of the size of his shareholding, may have a voting interest of more than 15 percent.
S Immo invests in the EU, targeting the capitals of Austria, Germany, and the CEE region. Immofinanz is a significant owner of high-quality commercial real estate. In addition to Austria, it owns properties in other Central European countries, where CPI Property Group also has a strong presence. These are Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary.
CPI Property Group is headquartered in Luxembourg, and its shares are traded on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. It owns properties in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Croatia, Switzerland, France, Romania, Russia, and the UK. Vitek owns 87.8 percent of CPI Property Group. According to Forbes magazine, he is one of nine Czech dollar billionaires.