Tomáš Raška’s Natland invests in Luxembourg real estate abroad

The investment group Natland of entrepreneur Tomáš Raška is entering the real estate market west of the Czech border for the first time: it has invested in the construction of a residential building in the Luxembourg town of Mamer. Until now the company has built and bought properties only in Czechia and Slovakia. In the project Natland is the equity partner: tens of millions of crowns have been invested so far, and the value of the whole scheme is estimated at hundreds of millions.

Mamer lies seven kilometres from the centre of the capital, which can be reached by train or car in about a quarter of an hour. The project already has a valid permit: apartments of 40 to 160 square metres are due to be completed within two years. It was prepared by the fund IVC Arbol RE, a joint venture of the Prague family holding Arbol Capital (Martin Havrda and Václav Audes) and the Luxembourg investment company Ilavska Vuyermoz Capital, known for stakes in fintech companies such as the German digital bank N26. “Given the scale, we needed an equity partner, which for this project became the Natland group,” says Audes, a deal lawyer by first profession.

Natland is entering a market that has cooled noticeably. After the price correction of 2023–2024, Luxembourg property stabilised, but new-build remains its weak spot: asking prices for new apartments fell by 3.6% by the end of last year and dropped below EUR 10,000 per square metre. At the same time, Luxembourg is one of the richest countries in the world: its GDP per capita is at the global peak, and its purchasing power clearly exceeds the rest of the EU. The area around the capital is among those where property is doing well but suffers from bureaucracy familiar from Czechia, and this is what the Prague financiers are betting on.

“Until now we were active mainly on the domestic market and in Slovakia, but we have long been tracking opportunities abroad on an opportunistic basis,” admits Tomáš Balvín, who is in charge of real estate investments at Natland.

Who Raška is and what the group is. He founded Natland in 2002. The group became known for rescuing companies in crisis, such as the fashion e-shop Zoot. Last year it earned CZK 313 million, a seven-year high. In real estate, Natland has more than two thousand completed apartments to its name, with another three thousand in preparation, notably on the site of a former dormitory in Prague’s Hostivař and in a new district in Kladno. In Slovakia the group owns the Bajkalská Office Centre in Bratislava and, together with the financial group Wood & Co., took part in buying the Vivo shopping centre.

Luxembourg is unlikely to be the end of it. According to Balvín, Natland is tracking or already analysing more than ten other opportunities abroad, from Serbia and Poland to the Netherlands. These involve not only development and income-producing property but also projects that require change. IVC Arbol RE also expects the alliance to open the way to new construction in Western Europe: besides Luxembourg, the fund is working on projects in Prague and the Austrian Alps.