Freedom Holding Corp (FRHC)

[Quintessence]

"Freedom Finance" will master the "Mercury Tower"

http://uvao.ru/realty/7783-fridom-finans-osvoit-merkuriy-tauer.html

Google translation. I am assuming "master" means "lease" or "occupy". Looks like Freedom Finance is consolidating its Moscow offices...

Real Estate >> May 23, 2018
"Freedom Finance" will master the "Mercury Tower"

The managing company of the business complex of Igor Kesaev, located in "Moscow City", managed to conclude a lease agreement of 3 thousand square meters with a large counterparty. In "Freedom Finance" indicated that the new office will serve to collect in one area all the companies belonging to the group. On average such premises in "Moscow City" are rented for a long period of time - 5-7 years. Experts estimate the annual rental rate offered by Freedom Finance at 26-40 thousand rubles per 1 sq m. Based on this estimate, the new office will cost the investment company 78-120 million rubles a year.

The total area of ??the 75-storey tower "Mercury Tower" is almost 174 thousand square meters, of which 87.6 sq. M - offices, and the rest is occupied by apartments. The complex belongs to Igor Kesaev, the owner of the retailer "Dixie" and the tobacco distributor "Megapolis". In 2012, during the opening ceremony of Mercury, the businessman said that the cost of building the tower reached $ 1 billion.

According to "CBRE", now in "Mercury" high vacancy - about 28% of office space is empty. The last significant deal with Orange Business Services took place more than 2 years ago. The ratio of vacant offices to the total area in Mercury is 2 times higher than the average for Moscow City. According to Aleksei Bogdanov, managing partner of S.A.Ricci, this is due to the policy of the owner of the complex, which is guided by strict criteria for the search and selection of tenants.

Apartments in Mercury are also not very popular - currently 45% of the area is vacant. Head of the department of elite real estate "Knight Frank" Lyudmila Potapova said that interest in them began to decline 4 years ago. When the tower was being built, the apartments of a large area presented in it attracted wealthy buyers. Now their preferences have changed.