Dutch real estate company Corio plans to offload EUR 200 mln worth of assets in the Netherlands. The portfolio includes 25 small retail properties - mostly supermarkets and small shopping centres in secondary locations across the country. According to Gerard Groener, new CEO of Corio, the assets didn't offer growth potential and were no longer strategic for the company business.
Dutch real estate company Corio plans to offload EUR 200 mln worth of assets in the Netherlands. The portfolio includes 25 small retail properties - mostly supermarkets and small shopping centres in secondary locations across the country. According to Gerard Groener, new CEO of Corio, the assets didn't offer growth potential and were no longer strategic for the company business.
The disposals will add to the sale earlier this year of a EUR 650 portfolio to White Estate, and the sale for EUR 350 mln of a portfolio of office and corporate properties in France. 'At the conclusion of the sale program we hope to have sold EUR 1.2 bn worth of assets,' Groener said during the presentation in Amsterdam of the company's first half results.
Groener, who suceeded Jan de Kreij in May this year, plans to focus on the most relevant shopping locations in the five countries where the firm is currently active (the Netherlands, France, Italy, Spain and Turkey) but does not rule out entering new European markets. 'We are particularly looking at the growing opportunities in the country. Ukraine and Romania are two countries that we are interested in at the moment,' Groener said.
He said that he is careful with new acquisitions on the continent where contrarily to the UK the price correction has not yet taken place. 'In most cases it is too expensive. Several developers are still taking into account prices of a year ago.'
