Multi sells Dutch office projects to focus on multifunctional malls

The Dutch arm of Multi Corporation has sold its portfolio of office projects to an investment company owned by Multi’s chairman Hans van Veggel.

The sale is part of Multi Vastgoed’s strategic reorientation to focus solely on the development of multi-functional shopping centres and inner-city redevelopment projects in the Netherlands.

The deal comes at a time Multi Corporation is in talks with listed Dutch real estate group Corio about the potential sale of part of its pan-European shopping centre portfolio. Corio is primarily interested in a number of operational shopping centres, as well as centres under development, in a selected number of Western European countries. The focus is on Germany.

In total, Multi sold 16 projects of various sizes to Van Veggel’s firm Timeless Investments. The financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

The projects in most instances are land positions and uninitiated office plans. The portfolio also includes existing office properties that can be redeveloped.

Timeless is contributing the existing office projects and the associated office team to a new Amsterdam-based firm named COD (Cradle Of Development). COD also owns another 10 projects.

Under the leadership of Ton van Oosten, COD will seek to position itself as an open-source developer and will apply Multi's design & development approach. Van Oosten was director of Dutch property firm Fortress until September 2008 when the company was taken over by project developer Maeyveld. Van Oosten then became a director at Fortress.