Consortium puts Lisbon’s Torre Ocidente up for sale

An international consortium has put Lisbon’s Torre Ocidente on the market with a price tag of over €70 mln.

The four owners - Caixa Geral de Depósitos Group, Iberdrola Inmobiliária, CBRE Global Investors and Sonae Sierra - have hired Cushman & Wakefield to market the scheme which gained full occupancy earlier this year. Its tenants include Lilly Portugal, Sonae Sierra, Luso Technip, Leo Pharma, and Servdept.

Completed in 2011, the asset provides 29,000 m2 of gross space over 14 floors. It is located next to the Centro Colombo retail centre, a major shopping destination in the Portuguese capital, and its twin Torre Oriente, which was bought by Union Investment Real Estate in 2010 for its open-ended real estate fund UniImmo: Global. The deal marked Union Investment's debut on the Portuguese real estate market.

A number of large-ticket transactions are expected to lift investment volumes to a record high this year in Portugal. UK group Eurofund Investments and US private equity firm Baupost are rumoured to be acquiring Dolce Vita Tejo, the largest shopping centre in Portugal worth some €200 mln.

The shopping centre on the outskirts of Lisbon is 60%-owned by Chamartin and 40%-owned by ING. Opened in May 2009, the centre provides 104,000 m2 of total commercial space across 270 shops and 9,000 parking places. Major tenants include Jumbo, Primark, El Corte Inglés Oportunidades and Zara, H&M, Kidzania and Starbucks Coffee. The scheme includes a 22,600 m2 hypermarket.

Meanwhile, British Land’s Pillar Retail Europark Fund (PREF) is understood to be looking to sell the remainder of its retail park portfolio following the €100 mln sale last year of the Nassica park south of Madrid and Vista Alegre in Zamora to private equity firm KKR.

British Land announced in 2013 that it was planning to exit Continenal Europe. In Portugal, PREF's five out-of-town retail parks are some of the best in the industry, particularly the Sintra retail park near Lisbon. The 27,000 m2 Portimao Retail Park on the other hand is in bad condition after it almost completely burned down in a fire in September 2012.