Sonae Sierra: A good price for bankrupt City Mall is EUR 10 mln, extra EUR 20 mln needed for reconfiguration

A good price for City Mall shopping center in Bucharest, currently in bankruptcy and still awaiting for a buyer, would be EUR 10 million, while the buyer would need another EUR 20 million to reconfigure the shopping center, according to the head of Sonae Sierra, Ingo Nissen, quoted by Mediafax newswire. City Mall went bankrupt last year after the mall owners, APN European Retail were unable to repay a loan of over EUR 30 million to UniCredit, while the operating income decreased by 90 percent last year. City Mall has been put up for sale the first time on March 31, for EUR 33 million, and later, because no investor was interested in buying the shopping center, there were two other auctions, so the price was reduced to EUR 29.5 million, respectively to EUR 26.2 million. For the fourth attempt to sell the mall, in late June, the starting price was set at EUR 23.58 million. The Portuguese company Sonae Sierra, which holds a portfolio of 49 malls in Europe and South America, will begin this month the construction of Adora commercial center in Craiova, following an investment of EUR 111 million. The new mall in Craiova will include 190 shops and 1,900 parking spaces. Sonea Sierra entered the local market in 2007 through the acquisition of a mall in Ramnicu-Valcea. Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com