The City Empiria building in Pankrác was purchased by billionaire Skala

Prague – The real estate fund of the Generali insurance group has sold the country's third tallest building, City Empiria in Prague's Pankrác, to entrepreneur Václav Skala. This is already the second transaction between the mentioned parties this year. In the spring, Generali bought the Kotva department store in downtown Prague from Skala's company PSN.

"In the future, we would like to develop the building fully," said PSN spokesperson Marek Janouch regarding the purchase of City Empiria. According to him, the deal is a signal that PSN is ready to enter into further acquisition negotiations. Discussions about the sale of the Pankrác skyscraper reportedly began two years ago, with the Austrian group S+B Gruppe originally being a strong candidate for purchase.

The City Empiria building was constructed in the 1970s as the headquarters for the foreign trade enterprise Motokov. Currently, the building houses, for example, the apartment developer Central Group. The structure has 27 floors and is 104 meters tall. The only taller buildings in the Czech Republic are the neighboring City Tower at 109 meters and the AZ Tower in Brno, which is 111 meters tall. In the future, it could be surpassed by a commercial and administrative center with a hotel in downtown Ostrava, which is planned to reach a height of 238 meters.

Generali is one of the world's largest providers of insurance and asset management. The Generali Group, founded in 1831, operates in 50 countries and its total premium income in 2019 amounted to 69.7 billion euros (1.9 trillion crowns).

PSN entered the real estate market in 1991 under the name Prague Property Management. In the capital, it manages, for example, the Dancing House, the Fashion House on Wenceslas Square, the Vršovice area of the Koh-i-noor factory, or the metronome at Letná. The company also owns other office and residential properties, and operates in Pardubice and Hradec Králové as well.