Ads in Serbia Full of Developed Businesses Worth Millions – Offer Includes Factories, Hotels, Spas, Farming Properties, Csardas…

(Illustration) Entire tourist complexes with developed businesses, hotels that work at full capacity, fully equipped factories… The ads have been full of such businesses lately, some of which are worth up to several million euros. Let us remind that eKapija recently wrote about the sale of Belgrade raft nightclubs, such as Lukas and Pirana.

One of the examples of the sale of well-developed businesses is a hotel in Brzece, on Kopaonik, with an area of 1,100 m2, which is being sold for EUR 3 million.

As emphasized in the ad, the hotel with 54 beds is only 300 meters away from the new Brzece-Mali Karaman gondola. It is built on private land with 26.4 ares and has a restaurant, a mini cinema, a hot tub, a sauna, an equipped gym, a parking lot for a large number of cars and a sports hall along the hotel, with 640 m2.

The real estate agent Dragan Miletic of the Real Consulting Nekretnine agency, which is the mediator in the sale of this hotel, says for eKapija that these, more valuable, pieces of real estate and developed business are sold through ads so as to expand the circle of potential buyers.

He also says that the fact is that the coronavirus has affected many, that they are barely in the black and that they are looking to make a radical cut, but there’s also the fact that each business which reaches its zenith has an interest to be sold at some point.

– This concrete hotel is a family business, it works at full capacity, and the owners are withdrawing from the business due to their age – says Miletic, who is also a valuer, and when asked about the real prices of such businesses, he says that everything where the price measures in millions is a matter of agreement and points out that it is not only the real estate that is being sold here, but also the land and the company to which everything is registered.

He adds that there are interested parties and that they are mostly local buyers and those who have earned money abroad.

This agency is also selling two houses, each with four apartments, near the center of Vrdnik, on the slopes of Fruska Gora, with a developed lease business through Booking and Airbnb. The price is EUR 410,000 for both, with the plot of land.

Another hotel on Kopaonik is being sold through the Status Nekretnine agency. As the agency told us, the hotel, which has been up for sale for about a year and a half, is located in the center of Kopaonik toward Cajetinska Cesma. The price is EUR 1.17 million for nearly 1,000 m2 of residential space – 10 four-bed apartments, a duplex, several studio apartments… It is being sold fully equipped and is functional.

– Foreigners are the most interested, mostly well-to-do Arabs, the same people who buy soccer clubs in England and Germany. What attracts them is that, since recently, summer tourism has been expanding on Kopaonik as well, and there’s also the new gondola, which is quite important – they say at Status Nekretnine and point out that the coronavirus has not affected mountain hotel tourism.

The reason for such sales, they say, is that foreigners are focusing on the Balkans increasingly often, and they also have money and need to invest it somewhere, so people are trying to get good prices.

Status Nekretnine also offers a factory of natural mineral water on Fruska Gora, at a price of EUR 1.45 million.

– This factory is not operational at the moment, but it did work for two to three years, though never at full capacity. It is around ten years old, but it is fully equipped, with Italian machines. The reason for the sale is that the owners have another business as well, which is their primary business, and the costs of the factory when it is not working are big – they explain and say that there are plenty of foreign buyers who are interested in this factory too.

According to the ad, the factory, which has the water permit, is located in the heart of Fruska Gora, on a plot of land with 0.6 ha, and has a production hall with 2,000 m2 and an office space with 127 m2. The water comes from two wells near the factory, with a capacity of 3 liters per second. The capacity of the filling plant is 5,000 l/h, and there’s also the possibility of the production of carbonated and non-carbonated juices.

A big tourist-recreational complex of a spa nature is being sold in the utility-equipped location with 41,937 m2, 15 kilometers from Becej and 5 kilometers from Srbobran. For a price of EUR 1.83 million, investors get a lot – a head office building, a restaurant with 130 seats (and another 200 on the balcony), sports courts (mini golf, basketball, tennis, futsal, beach volleyball, bocce, handball, high jump and long jump, badminton).

Furthermore, according to the ad placed by Djina’s Nekretnine, the entire territory of this property has been turned into a mini zoo, which is home to roes, rabbits, peacocks, guineafowl, swans…

It is added that there is also a section under construction – a bowling alley, an outdoor-indoor pool, a wellness center, an accommodation facility with a capacity of 100 beds and a sports hall, and a study of the possibility of the construction of a rehabilitation center and a spa has been prepared as well, considering that the location features access to thermal mineral water at a temperature of 39 degrees Celsius, which is beneficial to bones and nerves. The entire complex opens toward a water surface, which is suitable for fishing and relaxing.

Further to the south, near Novi Sad, a csarda on the Danube is up for sale through an ad. The complex, which is operational, consists of a raft, a csarda with 300 m2, 14 bungalows with a pool and family house, with garages and a parking lot. The price is EUR 1.133 million.

Near Mionica, in the village of Kljuc, an entire rural property called “Rodjak sa sela” is up for sale, with a built residential facility, a large log cabin and three smaller ones, a small traditional tavern, a garage, a Russian sauna, pools, a playroom… Everything is located, according to the ad, on a plot of land of 65 ares, in a great condition, the business is developed at Booking, and the price is half a million euros.

Among a multitude of other ads, the offer in the market includes a fully equipped pellet factory in Veliko Bonjince near Babusnica, on 6,000 m2, for EUR 620,000, an operational factory of animal feed in Kovacica and an accredited kindergarten in Surcin, ready for work, which is within the system of subsidies of the city of Belgrade, and the price is per agreement.

Milan Knezevic, the long-term president of the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises, an experienced entrepreneur and the owner of the company Modus, when asked by eKapija what the reason is for this kind of an expansion of the sale of developed businesses, says that it is not quite logical for someone to sell a smooth-running business, and that there are two possible reasons for such a move:

– One is that there’s no one to continue running the business, that the children want to do something else and that they don’t want to continue the business. On the other hand, people are looking for a way out due to the uncertainties related to the coronavirus, the worsening purchasing power, inherited problems in the form of credits, so they are putting the businesses up for sale, in order to settle the obligations and earn something in the process, which often serves as their pension – Knezevic believes.

He cites as another, global, reason the fact that the printing of money in the world has led to there being three times more of it that there are goods and businesses.

– This enormous amount of “parachute” money which is being printed needs to be invested somewhere, so as to avoid inflation. There’s an attempt to valorize the excess capital in the world through investments in real estate. This huge surplus of money is especially present in the Arab world. That’s where the increased demand is coming from, and with it, consequently, the supply as well – eKapija’s interviewee says.

Still, in his opinion, most people in Serbia are “trying to get out from the business alive”.

– That’s the reason for around 80% of the sales. People are trying to valorize those businesses wherever they can and, at whatever price they sell them, it’s a capital gain – says Knezevic.

When asked what the situation in entrepreneurship in Serbia is like now, after several payments of state aid, Knezevic says that it is still disastrous.

– Business can only be stabilized if there’s an optimal trend of business operations. The state has provided salaries for workers, but it’s no use when the turnover is still at zero. The solution is for the economy to unburdened for a certain time period, but in that case the state loses revenues, so it’s all a vicious circle – Knezevic concludes.

B. Petrovic

STATUS NEKRETNINE DOO NOVI SAD

R.E.A.L. Consulting Nekretnine d.o.o.

Milan Knežević

Dragan Miletić

smooth running businesses

developed businesses

sale

ads

hotels

csardas

spas

farming properties

factories

kindergartens