Patron Capital and Trei Real Estate have formed a partnership to develop and hold Vendo Park branded retail parks in Poland.

Patron and Trei have formed the 75:25 joint venture with a plan to invest €140m over the next three to five years.

The venture, which targets an initial 15 to 20 parks in regional Polish cities, already has five assets in its development pipeline.

The first of these will be located in Chorzów in the Silesian voivodeship, and it is expected to open before the end of the fourth quarter of the year. The other four towns are Otwock, Łapy, Skarżysko-Kamienna and Siedlce.

Funding for the acquisition comes from Patron Capital’s recently closed Fund VI.

Wiktor Lesinski, principal at Patron Capital, said: “Due to the continued strong fundamentals that underpin the Polish market and the evolving consumer preference towards convenience-driven shopping, this joint venture represents an attractive opportunity for our strategy and builds on our previous experience in Poland.

“We look forward to working with Trei and benefitting from its local presence, extensive network and experience with retail parks as we realise our strategy for this joint venture in the years ahead.”

Pepijn Morshuis, CEO of Trei Real Estate, said: “Entering into a joint venture with an external partner represents an important strategic step for Trei along its growth trajectory. We will soon achieve the objective of holding 50 Vendo Parks in our proprietary portfolio but see potential for further developments in Poland.

“The collaborative venture with Patron will give us an opportunity to step up the pace of expanding and scaling our business. We also realised over the past years that the demand for retail parks in the smaller towns of Poland is bigger than initially assumed.”

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