German commercial real estate owner and operator ECE has purchased two Polish shopping centres from Central and Eastern Europe-focused retail specialist Atrium European Real Estate for €298 mln.
Acquired for the ECE European Prime Shopping Centre Fund II, the deal includes Atrium Koszalin, located in Koszalin, and Atrium Felicity in Lublin. According to Atrium, the sale represents a premium of around 3% to book value.
Including these assets, the portfolio of ECE's second retail fund comprises nine shopping centres located in Germany, Poland, Hungary and Italy with a total market value of around €1.5 bn.
'The acquisition of the shopping centres in Lublin and Koszalin are in line with our strategy to focus on dominant shopping centres in excellent locations with a balanced tenant and sector mix. The two centers offer unique value-add opportunities in a market environment for retail assets, characterised by increasing polarisation,' said Volker Kraft, CEO of ECE Real Estate Partners.
ECE will take over the management and leasing of both assets, increasing its assets under management in Poland to a total of ten centres.
'These disposals continue the implementation of our ongoing strategy to consolidate our assets and to focus on higher quality assets in prime urban locations, that can deliver a stronger and more sustainable income in the long term,' said Liad Barzilai, CEO of Atrium Group.
'Warsaw and Prague are central to this strategy due to growing populations and very low unemployment, which are structural drivers that will support the growth performance of our assets,' Barzilai added.
From 2015 to date, Atrium said it had acquired €500 mln of prime assets and disposed of €700 mln of assets in secondary and tertiary locations, compressing the company's portfolio from 153 properties in seven countries to 32 'higher quality' assets in four countries.
'I am also very pleased that we were able to dispose of such a significant portfolio at a premium to book value,' noted Barzilai. 'The disposal proceeds will support us in the continued optimisation of our balance sheet and further growth of our portfolio towards dominant retail centres in prime cities in our core markets.'
The ECE deal follows the disposal at book value of a land plot in Gdansk earlier this year for €28 mln, and the agreed purchase of the 7,000 m2 Kings Cross shopping centre in Warsaw for €43.1 mln, with completion of the latter expected in the second quarter of the year.
JLL advised Atrium.
