SOLNA, Sweden, Dec. 30, 2002 (PRIMEZONE) -- NCC Finland Oy reached an agreement on Monday to sell the third and final phase of its Business Park Airport Plaza property-development project in Helsinki. The buyer is the Finnish real estate group Polar Kiinteistot Oyj. The sale will have a favorable impact on the NCC Group's earnings during the fourth quarter of 2002.
The third phase of NCC's Business Park Airport Plaza property-development project is called "Forte" and consists of about 8,000 square meters and 191 parking spaces, 151 of which are in a multi-story garage. Forte was completed in autumn 2002 and about 70 percent of the facility is occupied. The two stages of the project that were sold previously are called Airport Plaza Piano, which is now owned by the LEL Employment Pension Fund, and Plaza Presto, currently owned by the Finnish Paperworkers' Union. Business Park Airport Plaza houses offices for a total of about fifty companies with some 700 to 800 workplaces. Airport Plaza is part of the Aviapolis development area in the city of Vanda, where Helsinki's airport is located.
As part of the deal, NCC is buying land from Polar Kiinteistot with a total of about 700 development rights for housing. Most of these development rights are located in Vanda and Helsinki. The transaction also includes one building site with development rights for a 15,900 square meter office building in Aviapolis. The parties have agreed not to announce the purchase price.
"NCC's strategy is not to bind capital in properties but to develop new projects. This transaction involves the sale of a completed property as well as the purchase of valuable land for future development," says Jorma Ahokas, head of property development in Finland within NCC Property Development.
For more information:
Jorma Ahokas, senior vice president, Finland NCC Property Development +358 50673 90 Stefan Holmlund, Information Officer NCC Property Development tel +46 (0)70 651 1564 Markku Hainari, director, NCC Finland Oy, tel +358 50549 0905.
All NCC press releases are available at www.ncc.info
NCC is one of the leading building and property development companies in the Nordic countries. In 2001, NCC had 25,000 employees and sales amounting to SEK 46 billion.
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