David Musil's Penta takes control of Prague's Bubny district

Penta Real Estate, part of the investment group led by Marek Dospiva, has acquired a 50% stake in HoldCo Bubny, which owns land in Prague's Bubny-Zátory area. This makes Penta the lead developer of one of Prague's largest undeveloped sites — a project in which investment is set to reach 90 billion crowns by 2050.

David Musil, CEO of Penta Real Estate, discussed the deal in an interview with Forbes. According to him, the company had been in talks over Bubny for about two years, with the last two or three months spent negotiating concrete terms once the final structure of the deal was known.

Besides Penta, the project is also backed by AKIPIA, a group being set up by arms magnate Michal Strnad together with lawyer Tomáš Brzobohatý and former Penta investment director Marek Šmrha. AKIPIA holds 35% of HoldCo Bubny. A further 15% is held as a passive investor by the J&T group, which had earlier bought the site from billionaire Radovan Vítek's CPI group.

According to Musil, Penta will act as the lead developer, setting the direction and vision for the site's development, while AKIPIA will serve as the controlling investor, overseeing compliance with the project's financial parameters.

The Bubny-Zátory area is considered Prague's largest undeveloped brownfield site — plans call for around 10,000 apartments, office space, social infrastructure and a large city park. As Musil notes, that's twice as much as is currently being built in Smíchov and on Rohan Island combined. The approval of Prague's new master plan in May removed much of the uncertainty over permitted building volumes, which helped speed the deal along.

For Penta, this project is the largest in the company's history: in terms of construction volume, it expects to reach the scale of players like Sekira Group and Central Group. A new Vltava Philharmonic Hall is also planned next to the future district, and the site has already received a new railway station.