AMSTERDAM--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Regulatory News: CTP, Europe's largest listed developer, owner, and manager of industrial and logistics properties by gross lettable area (GLA), has acquired from Globalworth, the leading office investor in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), an industrial portfolio of 270,000 sqm GLA and 30ha landbank in six key locations in Romania. The portfolio is comprised of six industrial parks providing an appropriate mixture of locations in the vicinity of CTP's parks (Buchare.
The recently proposed plan offer for Western institutional investors to swap their frozen investments in Russia for Western stocks currently held by Russian retail investors could be bullish for CEE. The CEE's NAV is now trading at the level of the CEF price. The potential to return to the old premium alone offers the chance of 20-25% growth. If there's an opportunity to get rid of its written-off Russian assets, CEE's upside could be a multiple of that.
I believe Magnit PJSC's recent buyback may incentivize other Russian companies to follow suit, presenting a bullish opportunity for CEE, which marked to zero all of its Russian assets. Despite geopolitical and regulatory risks, volatility of emerging markets, concentration risk, and currency risk, I believe CEE is well positioned for recovery, particularly as the valuation of the main market for the fund, Poland, is below its historical average. I recommend investors conduct their own due diligence before making an investment decision, classifying the investment idea as a "Hold".
For the first month in three, equity CEFs (+0.67% on a NAV basis) on average witnessed plus-side performance. While their fixed-income CEF cohorts (+0.56%) posted gains for the second consecutive month.
The Central and Eastern Europe Fund has been hit particularly hard by Russian sanctions over the last year. The Russian book has been marked to zero but could yield substantial recovery value should sanctions be lifted.