Dutch insurance group Nationale-Nederlanden (NN), which was recently spun off by ING via an IPO, is understood to have acquired El Boulevard shopping centre in Vitoria, Spain, for €153 mln.
Dutch insurance group Nationale-Nederlanden (NN), which was recently spun off by ING via an IPO, is understood to have acquired El Boulevard shopping centre in Vitoria, Spain, for €153 mln.
According to well-informed market sources, CBRE Global Investors is the vendor of the asset as well as acting on behalf of its separate account client, NN, on the buy side.
CBRE Global Investors confirmed on Tuesday that it acquired the shopping centre for one of its clients but declined to disclose the name of the client.
The 63,526 m2 shopping centre is located in the northern outskirts of Vitoria, and is the region’s leading shopping centre with more than nine million visitors annually. The center opened in 2003 and contains 146 retail units, including mid-sized units Media Markt, Leroy Merlin, Primark, Forum Sports, different Inditex brands and H&M.
'Our client is actively acquiring well-performing shopping centers across Continental Europe and El Boulevard is widely considered in Spain as being one of the best in terms of tenant mix, shopping experience and levels of footfall,' commented Jeroen de Grunt, portfolio manager Separate Accounts Continental Europe, CBRE Global Investors.
He added: 'We are looking to acquire shopping centres of equal quality in Belgium, Germany, Spain, Poland and the Czech Republic over the next 12 months, in order to further enlarge our client’s retail portfolio.'
C&W managed the sale process on behalf of the vendor.
The purchase is the third mall acquisition completed by NN in the past few months. In July NN took a minority interest alongside Allianz Real Estate in the Fiumara shopping centre in the Italian port city of Genoa and it acquired a 50% stake in the €120 mln Espace René Coty shopping centre in the Northern French port city of Le Havre. CBRE Global Investors was the vendor in both deals.
