Bucharest’s Veranda Mall shopping center up for sale

The Veranda Mall shopping center, located near Bucharest’s busy Obor market, is up for sale and has reportedly caught the interest of real estate investors AFI Europe and M Core, Profit.ro reported.

The mall is currently owned by the Pogonaru family, the Pavăl brothers (owners of Dedeman), Evergent, and Erste Bank, among its shareholders.

AFI Europe and M Core, whose main shareholder is British real estate investor Caspar MacDonald-Hall, are reportedly among those interested. The latter is expanding in the Romanian retail market.

Contacted by Profit.ro, Andrei Pogonaru said he could not comment on the information.

If AFI Europe were to buy Veranda Mall, it would be its first acquisition in this real estate sector in Romania. The company has developed all five of its shopping centers in Bucharest, Ploiești, Brașov, and Arad from scratch.

The British investor M Core has just purchased its first mall in Romania, Shopping City Suceava, in the largest transaction involving the full sale of a mall in the past five years, and is also in talks to acquire the Focșani Mall. If it were to buy Veranda Mall, M Core would officially enter the Bucharest shopping mall market, a sector in which it is currently only present with retail parks.

The shareholders of the mall have considered selling it as early as 2019.

(Photo source: Veranda Mall on Facebook)