EFKA to utilize realty assets
The Single Social Security Entity (EFKA) is to immediately start utilizing top-pick properties in the center of Athens, which house offices, shops, services or even hotels, with a total area approaching 20,000 square meters.
On Tuesday the fund appointed the heads of a special purpose company with the aim of managing the entity’s properties and enhancing its income. They are Filippos Kontaxis as the company’s chairman and Katerina Tzoannou, a civil engineer, in the position of managing director.
The special purpose company of EFKA was provided for in a recent law for the utilization of its real estate, which numbers at least 400 properties throughout the country, with a total “objective value” (the value of properties used for tax purposes) of more than a billion euros. It is estimated that at least 20% – which concerns real estate of great value – is currently being utilized with great difficulty and that through the prudent utilization of the properties, the facilities already housing EFKA agencies will be upgraded.
The main priorities of the new special purpose company are the immediate registration and separation of EFKA’s existing assets into those that are for immediate sale, those intended for private use and those that will attract investors through long-term leases. Of course, many of them could be used for tourism purposes.
Moreover, among the first properties on the EFKA list to be utilized within 2023 are the five-story former TSMEDE office building, with a total area of 4,214 square meters, on Kolokotroni Street, next to the Old Parliament building, a 3,105 sq.m. property on Stadiou Street, another property on Voulis Street, listed buildings in central Athens, but also large properties or plots in Piraeus, Thessaloniki and elsewhere.
In the city center of Athens, on EFKA’s list of the first assets to be utilized, there are properties that house offices, services, hotels etc, as well as plots of land with a total area of over 15,000 sq.m.
Already, for many of them, EFKA has commissioned surveyors from the Finance Ministry’s register to prepare studies for their rental and market value, as well as proposals for their optimum utilization.
