Savills Investment Management has invested around €39m on behalf of its European food retail strategy to buy a supermarket portfolio in Portugal.

The international real estate investment manager said it has bought the fully-let 21,600sqm portfolio of four properties located in Gulpilhares, Olhão, Castelo Branco and Nazaré.

The latest deal lifts the equity commitments for the European food retail strategy to €470m – with properties in the Netherlands, Ireland, Denmark, the UK, Germany, and now Portugal, the manager said.

Ian Jones, director of investment at Savills Investment Management, said: “With our strong European investment platform, we were able to secure four further attractive properties for the European food retail strategy – even in the current extremely challenging market environment.

“The crisis-resistant food retail sector, for which physical stores will remain of central importance in the future, continues to represent an attractive investment product for institutional investors.”

Fernando Ramírez de Haro, managing director of Savills Investment Management for Spain and Portugal, said: “The essential retail and food sectors are very resilient and have strong fundamentals that enable their owners to better navigate economic turbulence in uncertain times.

“The four newly acquired assets fit very well with our strategy and will deliver value to our investors: they are leased on a long-term basis to the market leader and their earnings track record is very promising.”

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