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How would you characterise the sale of DUTB business and residential property in 2018? Does it differ from the plan?

I cannot reveal figures before the release of the annual report, however I can say that sales will be lower than last year due to delays in two key projects: Koper Gate and a business centre in Belgrade. Koper Gate is a 164 apartment complex in Koper where we renewed the apartments, similar to Celovški Dvori and Nokturno, and due to the boom in the construction market, we had a problem finding the contractors, prolonging the project. And if we are not going to sell the whole unit now, we will start selling each apartment separately next year from March 2019.

The second project is a business centre in Belgrade, which is completely sold out and is of great interest. We were convinced that the project, worth about EUR 13m would be carried out this year, but due to Serbian legislation we had to make additional analyses. The reason is that we are the owners, while the company is in Belgrade and it was necessary to open bank accounts in Belgrade so that the offers could also be submitted by Serbian citizens. Both projects have a total value of more than EUR 30m and both are prolonged, which again means lower sales this year - last year it was around EUR 100m - and this year will surely be lower. In addition, DUTB has a life cycle as an institution and all the good real estate was rented first, while the balance are selling more slowly. At the same time, we are noticing a lot of interest from foreign investors interested in certain land and real estate.

From where is the most interest?

A In October, we were at the Munich EXPO Real 2018 and compared to previous years, there was considerable interest this year in Slovenia. Investors came to us from all over Europe and also, the Middle East and China. Of course, the most are active Europeans, including the Slovaks, to whom we have already sold one piece of land and they are interested in others, and we also talked with investors from the Netherlands and London. Slovenia is perceived as quite a safe country and as other markets are already saturated with high prices, investors see the opportunity for safe earnings in Slovenia.

DUTB is selling the Izola Shipyard (EUR 9m plus tax) and Climasol in Sežana (EUR 8m plus tax). What would be the buyer profile?

We have just announced a  call for the sale of the shipyard. Heta also plays a part here - the former Delamaris, which is also on sale, the main purpose of this project is tourism development. We have already prepared the conceptual design and presented it to the municipality, and at the same time there are quite a few potential buyers - funds and private investors. However, the problem is that the municipal plans at the local level are taking (too) long - two to three years to be adopted. This means that an investor who comes to Slovenia, invests EUR 9m and then has to wait two years. This is a big problem and why we propose that the investor pays a deposit to DUTB and Heta, and then we begin to receive the spatial plans. If we have the spatial plan, the investor pays the entire purchase price, if not, we will return the deposit to the investor.

Climasol, in my opinion, is one of the most interesting pieces of land in Slovenia, especially for logistics. We also had a lot of interest in Munich for this land. We are actively talking to certain investors and developers who are developing logistics centres. Active cooperation with the municipality is already underway and in the near future, we will also prepare a tender and we hope to get a buyer, most likely from abroad. In Slovenia, it's hard to find someone who would develop such a site.

Blockchain technology allows individuals to purchase real estate across the globe. How close is the Slovenian real estate market to this trend?

I think more far than close. I believe that blockchain technology is the future; it enables verification of transactions and it happens in a second. However, I do not see that it could happen in the short term and especially not in Slovenia, in the real estate sector. First, other sectors should adopt it - banks, the insurance sector and then the real estate sector could follow. There has been discussion about owning a piece of a real estate e.g. in London, using blockchain technology - this is already possible, it just takes time and it is not possible to own it directly but via a real estate fund. Overall, blockchain means digitalising all of these procedures and yes, in the future, one could handle it digitally with a few clicks on the computer.