Nepi Rockcastle has continued its rapid advance as a leading shopping centre owner in Central and Eastern Europe by acquiring the Alfa Centrum in the northeastern Polish city of Bialystok.
The Johannesburg and Bucharest-listed real estate company acquired Alfa Bialystok from Polish group JWK Invest. The investment volume reflected an acquisition yield of 6.7%.
Comprising a gross lettable area of 37,000 m2, Alfa Bialystok is the dominant fashion destination in Bialystok. The city has a population of 290,000 and is the most populous urban area within a radius of 200 km in the north-east region of the country.
Nepi Rockcastle said that Bialystok had strong local macro-economic fundamentals and benefitted from cross-border retail trade due to its proximity to the Belarussian border.
Opened in 2008, Alfa Bialystok is a three-level shopping mall with 150 retail units including key tenants such as C&A, CCC, Euro RTV AGD, H&M, Helios Cinema, and Inditex brands (Zara, Stradivarius, Bershka, Pull & Bear, Oysho, Zara Home).
The deal comes less than a month after Nepi Rockcastle agreed to invest €461 mln to acquire 100,000 m2 of shopping centre space in the southern Polish city of Kraków.
Nepi Rockcastle also previously acquired Arena Plaza in Budapest and Paradise Centre in Sofia for €275 mln and €253 mln respectively. This means that the Johannesburg and Bucharest-listed real estate company has committed over €1 bn to the shopping centre sector in Central and Eastern Europe this year.
See also, South African firms spend billions on CEE retail property
