Ireland's Quinlan shifts focus to core CEE investment

Central and eastern European property developer Quinlan Private Golub, majority-owned by Irish investor Quinlan Private, is responding to the financial crisis by concentrating on its four core countries and shifting focus toward investment rather than development, says CEO Roger Dunlop.

"We're in a reasonably fortunate position as some schemes have taken longer than expected to get building permits so we don't have a huge amount of work in progress," Dunlop told PIE in an interview. "Our focus is now a bit more on cash-generative investments rather than development. There will be some completed schemes in the market in the next 12-18 months and we'll probably be more focused on picking up one or two of these than greenfield. But we are a developer and there will be schemes where we will step back in." QPG has capital available thanks to last year's Quinlan Private fundraising. Where QPG was previously targeing a pan-central European business, it is now more focused on key Czech, Slovakian, Polish and Hungarian markets. With so little activity, a recent central Prague transaction at a yield of 7% is virtually the only potential benchmark, he said. How high CEE yields will go is difficult to predict. "It depends where. I don't think it will be double digit - but I think it might be close." (For full story, log in to download 119 Property Investor Europe, published on 4 May 2009)