Press information

Vienna, April 2007

One of the major players in the Austrian shopping center landscape is working on “added value for retail properties”

EKAZENT IS AUSTRIA’S LEADING ACTIVATOR OF RETAIL PROPERTIES

As part of the reorganisation of the property development department within the group run by the property-based private foundation, in 2006 Ekazent Immobilien Management GmbH, one of the major players in Austria’s shopping center landscape and Austria’s leading activator of retail property, has undergone restructuring. The company has handed over all the building administration agendas within the Group to its sister company M + W Zander, and now concentrates exclusively on center management – in other words the development, construction, letting and management of retail property. “This reorganization will enable us in future to focus our attention much more efficiently on our real core competence and make better use of the enormous potential that continues to exist in this sector in Austria", is how the Ekazent Directors Kurt Schneider and Robert Podebradsky outline the plans for their company. Annual turnover, which stood recently at around two million Euro, is set to increase continuously by around ten percent a year. Ekazent currently employs just under 20 staff and manages around 35 retail developments. Most recently at the beginning of December Ekazent was commissioned to manage the “City Point Steyr” retail center.

In geographical terms, the focus of the company’s activities will continue to be centred on Austria: Here Director Kurt Schneider perceives “at first glance certainly a certain saturation of the market, but on a second look there is still enormous potential. In this country there are a whole series of projects which are in excellent locations, but whose concepts are no longer marketable and where a restructuring promises great success. With our know-how we can see excellent business opportunities here in the medium term, and we are placing great emphasis on our new product, refurbishment”, says Schneider.

Close cooperation exists with the Group partner, HSG Zander. The new structure involving this company, which became part of the Group environment around a year ago, will make it easier to present the extensive portfolio to the market even more effectively than before. “M + W Zander is not only our partner which is taking over certain areas of business from us, but also a friendly company with which we will be able to jointly offer our extensive property services more efficiently in future”, says Ekazent Director Robert Podebradsky delightedly. In the Ekazent core competence of center management, above all the basic principle of “added value for retail properties” will ensure new orders: “We see ourselves not as administrators in the conservative and traditional sense, but as active developers, and by being general suppliers for the design and development, reorientation and management of retail properties we want to help our clients draw more profit from their investments,” adds Podebradsky.

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