New Europe Property Investments (Nepi) had concluded a framework agreement to acquire a 70 percent interest in ELJ Vatra, the owner of a permitted development site called Mega Mall in Bucharest in Romania, it said on Friday. Nepi, which is listed on the JSE, the London Stock Exchange’s Alternative Investment Market and the Bucharest Stock Exchange, said the agreement was entered into by subsidiaries NE Property Cooperatief and Nepiom and Hungarian company Real Holding Lithium and its Austrian property development holding company, Real4You Holding. It said the 5.1ha site previously housed the ElectroAparataj factory and was located in a very densely populated part of eastern Bucharest close to the Romanian national football stadium. The building permit allows the development of a shopping centre of up to 70 000m2 of gross lettable area. The parties to the agreement intend to develop a dominant shopping centre on the site that would open by mid-2015. Tenant commitments of about 30 percent of the planned lettable area had already been received, it said. Nepi added that it had also concluded and/or committed to several other acquisitions in the past few days after the closure of its rights issue of about e100 million (R1.3 billion) last month. Nepi shares rose 0.39 percent to R67.25 on Friday. – Roy Cokayne