Foruminvest France has sold shopping centre Le 31 in Lille, to two special funds of Pramerica, the Munich-based investment fund. The acquisition price was well above EUR 150 mln for a yield of around 6%, the company said in a press release. Negotiations on the deal became serious in the autumn of 2008 and the closing occurred on 29 May, 2009.
Foruminvest France has sold shopping centre Le 31 in Lille, to two special funds of Pramerica, the Munich-based investment fund. The acquisition price was well above EUR 150 mln for a yield of around 6%, the company said in a press release. Negotiations on the deal became serious in the autumn of 2008 and the closing occurred on 29 May, 2009.
Le 31 is a core retail development with 22, 000 m2 GLA of retail and 600 parking spaces on the Rue de Bethune in Lille, the busiest pedestrian high street in northern France. The main tenants include Galeries Lafayette, Inditex, Adidas, Darty, Q-Park and Forum TV, the TV-channel launched by Foruminvest for its own shopping centres, providing entertainment, sports, news and local information.
This is the first major retail transaction in France since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in October 2008. Cushman & Wakefield advised Foruminvest on the sale.
Foruminvest expects to start construction on its second development in France, Les Terrasses du Port in Marseille, in Q4 2009. The complex is located in the city centre on the seashore, next to the old port. With 52.000 m2 of GLA and 3,000 parking spaces, this will be the largest inner-city shopping centre in Marseille, the company said. Some 60% of the 170 shops have been pre-let, with the main tenants including H&M, ZARA, Esprit, Apple Megastore and Decathlon.
Foruminvest has offices in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy and Turkey and focuses on dominant shopping centre developments in medium-sized and large cities with a strong catchment area.
