European investment manager Aerium Finance is seeking to sell some EUR 400 mln worth of retail assets in Central and Eastern Europe as it shifts its focus back to its core markets of the UK, France, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Germany and Turkey.

European investment manager Aerium Finance is seeking to sell some EUR 400 mln worth of retail assets in Central and Eastern Europe as it shifts its focus back to its core markets of the UK, France, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Germany and Turkey.

London-based Aerium, which manages roughly EUR 7 bn of assets, expects the disposals to be completed within the next six to nine months, founder and CEO of Aerium Franck Ruimy told PropertyEU in an interview during the Mipim trade fair in Cannes.

'We want to focus on our core European markets and on Turkey where we have a strong presence,' Ruimy said.

The package includes a dozen shopping centres anchored by Tesco and Carrefour in Poland, Slovakia and Czech Republic. The properties, which were refinanced last year with a EUR 180 mln loan from Deutsche Pfandbriefbank, occupy a total of about 247,000 m2 and consist of three hypermarkets and two shopping centres in the Czech Republic, four shopping centres in Poland and four hypermarkets in Slovakia.