Carmila, the owner of shopping centres adjoining Carrefour hypermarkets in France, is set to become the third largest retail REIT in Continental Europe on completion of its merger with Cardety, another former Carrefour property business.
Subject to shareholder and regulatory approval, Carmila and Cardety, the listed French SIIC, or REIT, formerly known as Carrefour Property Development, plan to merge later this year.
The new entity will be listed on Euronext Paris as a SIIC under the Carmila name. The company will be the third-largest listed real estate property company in Continental Europe. The number one and two listed retail landlords in Europe are both French REITs: Unibail-Rodamco and Klépierre.
The new Carmila will own a portfolio, including 205 shopping centres, with an appraised value of €5.3 bn at end-December 2016. The existing Carmila business accounts for all but about €100 mln of the asset value. The net asset value of the merged entity would be €2.9 bn, based on the estimated EPRA NAV of each of the two companies at the end of last year.
French retail giant Carrefour will continue to own 42.4% of the merged company, while the other shareholders in Carmila and Cardety will own 55.3% and 2.3% respectively.
Jacques Ehrmann, chairman of Carmila, said: 'After three successful years, marked notably by the completion of the refurbishment programme of its 194 shopping centres, the deployment of our local and digital marketing strategy for the benefit of our tenants, and active tenant management, Carmila enters a new 5-year phase to deliver shopping centre extensions.'
Carmila was founded on 16 April 2014 by Carrefour (and large institutional investors in order to increase the value of shopping centres adjoining Carrefour hypermarkets in France, Spain and Italy. Its portfolio consisted of 194 shopping centres in France, Spain and Italy.
Cardety specialises in the development, acquisition and management of retail parks.
