Gaw Capital Partners and its co-investors have invested an undisclosed amount to acquire the Florentia Village Guangzhou outlet mall in Guangdong, China, from Silk Road Holdings, whose key partner is Nuveen Real Estate.
Christina Gaw, managing principal and global head of capital markets, co-chair of alternative investments at Gaw Capital, said: “We are delighted to have completed acquisition of the mall, which is a strong-performing asset with unique expansion opportunity.”
Works of the 17,000sqm Florencia Village connecting square and adjacent retail podium in the outlet mall has been approved and expected to take approximately 12 months to complete the works.
“Expansion of Florentia Village will allow us to harvest untapped revenue potential and to create value through asset upgrades,” Gaw said.
Imelda Tham, managing director – investment at Gaw Capital, described the mall as “a unique and resilient segment of the retail sector”.
“Being located in the Greater Bay Area, it will be able to ride on a domestic consumption-led recovery in the region,” she said.
Silk Road, a joint venture between Nuveen, Gaw Capital, Italy’s Fingen Group, global apparel logistics company Waitex, and a US institution has built seven luxury outlet malls in tier-one Chinese cities.
In 2017, Silk Road disposed of Florentia Village Jingjin, near Beijing and Florentia Village Shanghai to a vehicle managed by Nuveen and backed by investors including Allianz and Gaw Capital.
A source told IPE Real Assets that Silk Road was not designed to hold the assets for the long term – and that it was always its intention to sell assets over time as they mature and stabilise.
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