Barings Real Estate Advisers has acquired the Entresse Shopping Centre in Finland’s second-largest city Espoo from the CapMan Group for €30.4 mln.
The Entresse Shopping Centre was built in 2008 and offers a gross lettable area of 9,754 m2 across 40 units, as well as a garage providing space for 300 cars. It is currently 82% let.
Barings said it has identified a number of asset management initiatives to improve the value of the centre, including a capex programme to reconfigure and upgrade the property to introduce new retailers and food and beverage operators.
Göran Bengtsson, head of the Nordics at Barings Real Estate Advisers, said: ‘Espoo is Finland’s second-largest city and with long-term population growth outperforming the national average and the increasing appeal of the area as one of Helsinki’s leading suburban locations, further growth is expected. These demographic changes, combined with the high build quality of Entresse, its close proximity to public transport and plans for further development of the area, made it a very compelling acquisition opportunity. We have already planned a range of initiatives to introduce new tenants to the scheme and further improve the retail centre.’
Espoo currently has a population of 270,000 which is set to increase further following major planned infrastructure improvements.
Gunther Deutsch, head of investment transactions Europe at Barings Real Estate Advisers, commented: 'With the acquisition of this dominant regional shopping centre we have concluded our second transaction for this particular value-add strategy. With our longstanding Scandic retail track record and experienced team in Helsinki we are well-placed to carry out a successful repositioning of the asset. Sweden and Finland are the Nordic markets which we will continue to focus on and look to identify retail, office and logistics assets. As well as value-add opportunities we are also actively looking at core and core plus assets.'
