When ZDR Investments launched its fund in 2017, Czech retail park investing was still finding its footing as an institutional asset class. Eight years later, the group’s partners Radek Hladký and Roman Latuske are overseeing a portfolio of over CZK 20 billion across a portfolio of 78 properties — and they insist the playbook hasn’t fundamentally changed.
“We don’t plan by saying we must grow to 25 billion next year,” says Latuske. “If we’re not convinced an asset is right, we’ll accumulate cash and wait.” It’s the kind of line every fund manager recites, but Latuske insists ZDR Investments’s track record proves they’re serious. The fund for qualified investors ZDR QIF has delivered stable returns for eight consecutive years, with equity returns running between 10 and 13%, and a dividend payout of around 8% for those investors who choose the income option — (95% opt for growth shares, partly for tax reasons).
LEASE MANAGEMENT AS A CORE DISCIPLINE
The headline acquisition of 2025 for the ZDR QIF fund was the Aventin Retail Park in Jihlava — roughly 26,000 sqm of retail space and one of the largest retail parks in the Czech Republic. But Hladký says deal volume isn’t the goal, it’s preserving cash-flow. The real achievement he’s proud of is that every lease renewal targeted for the year was successfully completed.
That’s important, because the fund currently manages more than 700 leases. Its weighted average lease term (WALT) has been pushed from six to seven years — a notable shift on a portfolio spanning 447,000 sqm of lettable space. “That’s the foundation,” says Latuske. “Investors can reasonably predict that the stable returns we’ve generated for eight years will continue.”
The commercial leasing environment was shaped by the inflationary shock of 2022-2023, when cumulative Czech inflation hit approximately 25% over two years. Full indexation clauses meant some tenants saw rents jump by 25% for the same space. ZDR Investments’s approach was pragmatic: negotiate slightly below full indexation in exchange for longer lease commitments. “It was a win-win,” says Latuske. “We extended lease length, they got breathing room.”
Retrospectively, Hladký frames this as a stress test. “When tenants renew after going through covid, surging energy costs, and 25% cumulative inflation — that confirms you didn’t make a mistake when you bought the property five or six years ago.”
YES TO AUSTRIA!
Czech assets now account for roughly 40-45% of the portfolio, a ratio that has held steady for about three years as ZDR Investments has expanded into Austria, Croatia, Slovenia, and Slovakia. The logic for Austria is straightforward: 70-80% of tenants are the same German and Austrian chains operating in Czech retail parks, bank financing terms are more favorable, and — critically — it’s nearly impossible to build a greenfield retail park there anymore. New Austrian projects are almost exclusively brownfield conversions or reconstructions.
So the share of Austrian assets in ZDR Investments’s portfolio is increasing steadily, with the fund managing to acquire high-quality retail properties in the market. Last year, the fund acquired the EUCO retail parks in Wolfsberg and Eugendorf, followed this year by the acquisitions of PRO Linz and the retail park in Amstetten. All four originate from the portfolio of the developer Rutter Immobilien Gruppe. With more than €100 million-worth of activity, ZDR Investments is becoming an increasingly significant player in the Austrian retail real estate market.
OFFICES A NO-GO
ZDR QIF’s investment strategy focuses primarily on retail parks anchored by grocery and everyday-goods retailers. But originally, the fund also held an office building in its portfolio. Ultimately, however, the 2019 acquisition of Nordica Office in Ostrava from Skanska served as an education in just how complex it is to manage a 12,000 sqm asset with ten tenants and short leases of three to five years. Latuske says you find yourself in constant incentive negotiations, solving ESG retrofit headaches in an already-built structure. ZDR Investments eventually sold the building to RT Torax, the dominant office player in Ostrava.
The comparison with operations in the retail sector are stark. “When you only have one office building, you can’t offer tenants flexibility,” Latuske explains. “In retail, we know every chain from Šluknov to Rijeka.” The Nordica exit crystallized the fund’s strategic focus: grocery-anchored retail, retail parks, and logistics — nothing else.
ZDR Investments plans further disposals in 2026. Not from distress but to validate portfolio pricing. “Once every two years, we sell something just to show investors the valuations are real,” says Hladký. With interest rates expected to remain stable and yields on retail parks still comfortably above financing costs at around 7%, the partners see no reason to deviate from the formula.
The ZDR Investments Group currently holds around 22,000 investors, accepts new capital on a monthly basis, and — somewhat unusually for managers sitting almost CZK 21 billion.
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