Blackstone is considering an offer for Neinver, the outlet centre owner put up for sale by the Losantos family.
Local press reports say the US private equity firm is one of the potential buyers for Madrid headquartered Neinver, which has 19 outlet centres and six other retail assets across Europe. Neinver also has a joint venture with Nuveen, formerly known as TH Real Estate, which owns and operates 13 outlet schemes with a strong presence in Spain and Poland.
Credit Suisse is said to be seeking offers of €500 mln for the Neinver portfolio. Blackstone is selling its own outlet portfolio in Italy with Rothschild and JLL seeking offers of €800 mln for the five schemes.
Singaporean REIT Sasseur, the first outlet specialist to list in Asia, is said to be interested in four of the five. The attractiveness of outlet centre investments was further underlined last week by Savills Investment Management’s purchase of two designer outlet centres in France in an offmarket deal with McArthurGlen and funds managed by Ares Management Corporation.
Savills IM paid close to €300 mln for the assets, in Troyes and Roubaix, which were acquired via the creation of a new OPPCI and on behalf of a club of investors comprising several institutions managed by a Frankfurt-based multi manager along with existing Savills IM funds.
McArthurGlen has retained a stake in both properties and will remain as operational manager. The Troyes asset was developed in 1995 and is the largest designer outlet in France, with over 100 stores, a 30,000 m2 GLA.
Roubaix was completed in 1999 and comprises 75 stores with a 17,300 m2 GLA.
Debt is being provided by Société Générale and DWS.
Ares bought the Roubaix and Troyes outlets for about €200 mln in 2015 from Resolution, which had acquired the assets in 2010 and repositioned them as premium retail outlets occupied by high-end brands.
This story first appeared in EuroProperty, PropertyEU's sister publication.
