Blackstone is tapping into the huge investor demand for core assets in Germany by putting the Rhein-Ruhr Zentrum, one of the country's top-10 shopping centres, on the market for €300 mln, PropertyEU's sister publication EuroProperty has revealed.
The US private equity firm is understood to be close to appointing a broker to sell the 110,000 m2 centre in north-west Germany, with a sales process starting later this month.
The sale is likely to be highly competitive, given that centres of this size come to the German market only infrequently. European retail REITs such as Unibail-Rodamco and Klépierre and fund managers backed by global pension funds are among the likely buyers, according to the February edition of EuroProperty.
The centre sits in a catchment area of 2 million people and its stores recorded sales of around €140 mln last year.
Rhein-Ruhr Zentrum is located in Mülheim, North Rhine-Westphalia. The centre was previously owned in a joint venture with ECE, with the German mall operator owning a 10% stake. Blackstone took full control in 2013 as part of a restructuring of the deal with ECE.
That restructuring also means that Blackstone has the right to sell the centre unfettered by an existing management contract, so any buyer can bring in their own management.
The centre is seen as being of good quality, but with the potential to be 'spruced up' through asset management, and extended if a neighbouring Karstadt department store is bought in.
Blackstone took control of the asset when it purchased the property positions owned by US investment bank Merrill Lynch in 2011, including assets in the Merrill Lynch European Real Estate Opportunity Fund. The positions taken on included equity and debt in assets in Europe, the US and South America.
The vast majority have now been sold, including the Hilton Prague Old Town hotel, which was bought last December by Singaporean firm M&L Hospitality Trust.
Blackstone refinanced Rhein-Ruhr Zentrum in 2014 with a €210 mln loan provided by German bank Helaba and LaSalle Investment Management.
In June 2015 EuroProperty revealed that AXA IMRA had bought a 50% stake in the nearby Ruhr-Park shopping centre from Perella Weinberg for €325 mln, in the last large German shopping centre stake to be brought to the market.
All parties declined to comment.
EuroProperty is part of the PropertyEU group.
