French listed group Altarea is selling a EUR 300 mln portfolio of small city-centre retail assets this year as part of its strategy to re-focus the business on dominant shopping centres.
French listed group Altarea is selling a EUR 300 mln portfolio of small city-centre retail assets this year as part of its strategy to re-focus the business on dominant shopping centres.
In an interview with PropertyEU during the Expo Real property fair in Munich, Altarea France’s CEO Albert Malaquin said the company has already completed EUR 200 mln worth of disposals so far this year and is now looking to offload a further EUR 100 mln. ‘We will continue to dispose of this type of assets in 2011 because we are seeking to concentrate our portfolio on larger, dominant shopping centres such as the Cap3000 asset. Institutional investors are keen to buy inner city retail properties, because they provide a secure cash-flow,’ he says.
According to Malaquin, the company is also considering resuming speculative office development with a financial partner. ‘We are testing the market because we see opportunities in development or redevelopment of outdated buildings in France, due to the lack of newly built office space,’ he added.
Altarea, which has a shopping centre portfolio of over EUR 2.5 bn, is also looking for expansion in the Italian market, where it currently owns a portfolio of six malls across the country. ‘We have a development pipeline of a further five or six shopping centres in Italy but we are looking for an investment partner to co-fund the projects before progressing on the development,’ Malaquin says. Altarea, with a market capitalisation of EUR 1.2 bn, entered the Italian market in 2002 and currently runs the Italian operations from an office in Milan, with a team of roughly 50 people.