Some analysts believe that 2013 was the bottom of the crisis. This seems to be true for a number of counties and it varies from country to country depending on the extent to which it was affected by the crisis.
Some of the European countries recorded during 2013 positive growth in several sectors indicating recovery. Romania is among the best which recorded increase in several sectors, such as the industrial production and housing prices.
During 2013 the psychology of the investors was very bad, especially those who invested in lands on the basis of speculative criteria. On the other hand investors who invested on the basis of proper investment criteria, such as those who invested in buildings in good location rented with good income are very happy.
During the new year it is expected that more investors will move into this kind of investments ( e.g. buying a shop or office block which is rented), with a return on the investment 10-12%.These income fetching investments will enable the investors to cover the running expenses, both in Romania, Cyprus and other areas, and withstand the selling of their properties at a fraction of their cost. To these investors, as we always do from the beginning,we offer our services (in cooperation with our lawyers) for the examination of the titles and related property ownership documents, and making feasibility stuies before advising our clients to get committed.
The problem of cash is of course the big difficulty, and will push some investors in association with friends and others to put together their available cash and take a proportion in the investment. And here again we offer our services for the administration and distribution of the income. The cash shortage, reminds me of something which was frequently mentioned by a distinguished chairman of a big Group in Cyprus with whom I worked as his financial manager a few decades back. He used to say ‘Cash is the King’ (Of course he could not imagine the haircut done in Cyprus last April!!!).
During 2013 we started with other associates from Romania and Italy, some photovoltaic projects near Bucharest, totalling approximately 12 megawatt. Each project involves the obtaining of a lot of permits and authorisations and when all these permits are received, the projects can either be sold to investors (the land with the authorisations) or be developed by us with other investors.
For 2014 the income (sale price of electricity and the income from ‘Green certificates’) is lower than before, but it still ranks among the best in Europe. Our plans are when we finish with the projects we started last year, will consider the possibility to start some more projects in the photovoltaic sector.
We look forward to 2014!!!!!