Belgian real estate investor buys half of shopping center portfolio in Romania

Czech – based InterCora group sold half of its stake in a portfolio consisting of 8 of its 13 retail parks in several Romanian cities, most of them anchored by retailers Kaufland or Lidl, to First Retail International FRI, in a deal whose value was not mentioned. Mitiska Ventures, manager of FRI, signed the deal with Alpha Property Development, the development arm of InterCora group in Romania. InterCora's Romanian portfolio, which was part of the deal, consists of eight retail parks covering some 32,000 sqm of gross leasable area (GLA), with 98 percent of it leases. These include a shopping center anchored by Kaufland on Mihai Bravu boulevard in Bucharest. Other tenants in the portfolio are Takko, Deichmann, DM, C&A, KFC. “In our opinion the perception of Romania and of Romanian politics does not correctly reflect reality. As is the case for Europe and the world as a whole, the economic situation in Romania has changed. However, retailers are still expanding and good projects continue to perform well. The InterCora portfolio is a very good example of this,” said Karel De Bondt, Real Estate Director CEE at Mitiska Ventures. Mitiska and Alpha Property Development also signed a country partnership which should fuel more deals in the future. “We believe together we are very well positioned to further enlarge our asset base with high quality developments. It is our intention to identify comparable country partners and portfolios in other European countries,” Karel De Bondt went on. Alpha Property Development is a Romanian company specialized in developing and investing in retail warehousing in Romania. The company is part of the InterCora Group, a German backed real estate investor and developer active in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania. In Romania, Alpha Property Development/InterCora Group has finalized the development of 59 Kaufland hypermarkets and 13 retail parks. Another 12 Kaufland stores and a total of 22.000 sqm GLA of retail parks are currently under development. First Retail International is a Belgium based real estate fund with a specialist focus on retail warehouse properties in Europe. It currently has a committed capital of EUR 41 million with a final target at EUR 75 million. Current shareholders of FRI include Belgian, Dutch, Luxembourg and Swiss private and institutional investors. The real estate investment management company Mitiska has committed EUR 10 million to FRI as the sponsor of the fund. editor@romania-insider.com (photo source: Mitiska )