Skanska and S+B Gruppe are competing for a portion of the ECM projects at Pankrác

Prague - The construction company Skanska and the Austrian real estate firm S+B Gruppe are interested in taking over some properties and projects of the indebted developer ECM Real Estate Investments (ECM) in Prague's Pankrác area. Specifically, they are interested in the office projects City Deco and City Element. This was discovered by ČTK from documents stored in the insolvency register. ECM has been in bankruptcy since July.
    It is still far from decided whether the mentioned projects will be acquired by Skanska or S+B Gruppe. The consulting company REA International has advised the creditor committee of ECM to reach out to other interested parties who had previously expressed interest in these properties.
    According to the minutes from a meeting of the ECM creditor committee, Skanska is only interested in the land in Pankrác, while S+B Gruppe allegedly wants to take over the project companies with their liabilities as well.
    "Skanska is of course always interested in new suitable projects. We consider Prague 4 to be one of the strategic areas, where we have long been engaged in the City Green Court project. We cannot comment on further details due to the confidential nature of the discussions," said Skanska spokesperson Lucie Nováková to ČTK. The currently under-construction office building City Green Court was bought by Skanska from ECM in 2010. S+B Gruppe did not respond to ČTK's inquiries regarding the acquisition of ECM's projects.
    Another significant project of ECM in Pankrác is the residential and office high-rise project City Epoque. However, the Municipal Court in Prague recently annulled the valid zoning decision for the project, thus upholding the objections of a civic association.
    ECM was founded in 1991 by entrepreneur Janků, who still leads the company. Creditors have registered claims against ECM in a nominal amount of 9.5 billion crowns. For the first half of this year, ECM reduced its loss to 2.6 million euros or about 64 million crowns, down from a loss of 41.1 million euros a year earlier.