US private equity firm Blackstone and retail specialist ECE have sold the Schwanenmarkt shopping centre in the western German city of Krefeld to an international family office.
US private equity firm Blackstone and retail specialist ECE have sold the Schwanenmarkt shopping centre in the western German city of Krefeld to an international family office.
The asset was last valued at €52 mln but the financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. The transfer of ownership is scheduled to take place at end-June 2014.
The scheme comprises 22,400 m2, including 11,100 m2 of retail space over 40 shops; 760 m2 of office space as well as 220 apartments. It was opened in October 1976 and has been operated by an ECE subsidiary since 2006.
The complex is part of the Brune portfolio, which was acquired in 2006 from developer Walter Brune by a joint venture of Merrill Lynch (88%) and ECE (12%). At the time, the asset was fully let and valued at nearly €62 mln.
Blackstone took over Merrill Lynch's stake in 2012.
The property was put on the market in 2011 after the securitised debt backing the asset reached a loan-to-value of nearly 87%. The €560 mln Opera Germany 2 securitised debt was arranged by Eurohypo (now Hypothekenbank Frankfurt) in December 2006 and comprised three German shopping centres including the Schwannenmark loan.
The asset was valued at €52 mln at its last appraisal in March 2012. Another mall in the CMBS structure - the €252 mln Rhein-Ruhr-Zentrum in Mülheim - will be held by the landlords while the third one, the €274 mln Kö Galerie in Dusseldorf was sold to Allianz Real Estate a few days ago. Allianz offered €300 mln for the 50,000 m2 mixed-use property. The transaction reflects a yield below 5%, in line with current market levels for prime shopping centres in Germany.
