Nicolae Ciobanu, Managing Partner – Head of Advisory at Fortim Trusted Advisors, talked to Property Forum about the firm's growth in office leasing and land transactions, as well as the outlook on rents and the role of the defense sector in boosting industrial demand going forward.
Timișoara emerged as the sole Romanian city to experience growth in the office leasing market during H1 2025, defying a national downturn, according to a report by Fortim Trusted Advisors.
The Romanian commercial real estate market saw a total investment volume of €155.8 million, with UK-based capital accounting for 68% of these deals, according to a study by Fortim Trusted Advisors, a member of the BNP Paribas Real Estate.
Investment in the hotel sector is experiencing a significant upswing, with Romania witnessing a 56% increase in 2024 versus 2023, reaching €69.3 million. This trend aligns with a broader European surge, where hotel investments reached €20.5 billion, marking a 70% rise and establishing hotels as the leading asset class.
Cluj-Napoca recorded a fourfold growth in office leasing in 2024 and was the biggest regional market for such transactions, according to a Fortim Trusted Advisors analysis.
Founded in 2002, Fortim Trusted Advisors has been controlled since December 2020 by Costin Nistor, Nicolae Ciobanu and Bogdan Cange.
KÉSZ Group has announced that its Corallis residential complex in Bucharest has already sold homes amounting to around €11.5 million, which accounts for 27% of the whole residential stock in the project.
Investors originating from Belgium had the biggest share in Romania's commercial property sector in the first eight months, according to a Fortim Trusted Advisors study.
In the first half of the year, companies in Bucharest leased 84% of the total volume of modern office space traded in the country.
The office leasing volume closed in H1 2024 grew by 0.2% compared to the same period of last year, with Bucharest seeing the biggest activity, followed by Cluj-Napoca and Timișoara, according to a report by Fortim Trusted Advisors.
Outside Bucharest, companies leased less than a fifth of the total traded area in Bucharest.
Romania's GDP recorded an increase in Q2 2025, according to flash estimates from the National Institute of Statistics (INS).
The Romgaz Group has reported a consolidated net profit of RON 1.67 billion (€338 million) for H1 2025 , which is 8.60% lower than the same period in 2024.
Romania's Minister of Finance Alexandru Nazare has announced changes to the tax regime of multinational firms as part of a wider effort to increase revenues to the budget.
JTI's global IT hub in Romania is expanding, with the number of employees growing from 140 at the beginning of the year to 170 currently, and projected to exceed 200 by year-end.
Digi Communications has reported consolidated revenues and other income of €1.11 billion for H1 2025, marking a 21% increase compared to the same period in 2024.