Immofinanz opens new retail parks in Czech Republic, Slovakia

Austrian real estate developer Immofinanz said that it is expanding its Stop Shop speciality shopping centre portfolio with new openings in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

The company's Stop Shop centre in Znojmo opened its doors last week, becoming the ninth retail scheme under this brand in the Czech Republic. The 5,000 m² centre located on the Austrian-Czech border was fully leased at opening to a number of brands including Wiky, New Yorker, KiK, DM, Takko, Deichmann, Elektro Expert and Sportisimo.

In Slovakia the company is opening a further two retail parks this week in Dubnica nad Váhom, in the north-western region of the country. The centres are almost fully let to international tenants like Planeo Elektro, KiK, DM, Takko and Deichmann. In particular the Vahom centre offers nearly 13,000 m² of retail space on two levels.

The latest projects bring the total number of Stop Shop retail parks in Eastern Europe to 33 assets in five countries. The operation comes hard on the heels of Immofinanz' opening of the Gold Plaza Baia Mare mall in Romania.

'The opening of these three retail parks not only expands our Stop Shop portfolio, but also confirms our leading market position in this segment,' said CEO Eduard Zehetner. 'The key to this success is the high functionality of the Stop shops, combined with central locations and good integration in the traffic network.'

Last week, Immofinanz announced plans to buy back nearly 50 million shares in the course of 2011, roughly 5% of the outstanding capital. 'Through the repurchase programme we will achieve several effects: on the one hand we will create the basis for the refinancing of the convertible bonds 2014 and 2017, on the other hand we are able to increase the NAV,' Zehetner added.