Rockspring buys 21 Eroski supermarkets for EUR 45m

Spanish retail group Eroski has sold a further 21 supermarkets as part of its ongoing sale-and-lease back programme. Rockspring, advised by Savills, acquired the 21 assets for EUR 45 mln.

Luis Espadas, head of capital markets at Savills Spain, said: 'The properties benefit from being located in regions where Eroski is the dominant grocery retailer. Sale-and-leaseback transactions involving solid creditworthy tenants are still a favourite amongst investors who seek attractive returns with low risk, long leases with little management involved. We will probably see more transactions of this nature going through before the end of 2010.´

Eroski operates about 1,000 outlets spread across Spain, as well as franchises. In the last few years the group has actively disposed of chunks of its property holdings through a string of sale-and-leasebacks with various investors.

Prior to the deal announced on Friday, the Spanish retail group sold two retail units to Rockspring in July.

A month earlier Eroski sold Bilbondo shopping centre to the Iberian value-added fund managed by ING Real Estate Investment Management for EUR 50 mln, and two warehouse logistics facilities to New York-listed WP Carey & Co for EUR 43 mln.

In April European Property Investors Special Opportunities, (EPISO), a fund co-managed by AEW Europe and Tristan Capital Partners, completed the sale-and-leaseback transactions of 10 Eroski units for EUR 150 mln.

Two months before that WP Carey completed the second tranche of a EUR 74 mln corporate sale-and-leaseback transaction with Eroski. The second tranche, totalling EUR 36 mln, related to 16 retail facilities. The first tranche comprising 13 sites closed in December 2009. Around the same time UBS Real Estate, acting on behalf of its fund UBS (D) 3 Kontinente Immobilien, acquired Ribera del Xúquer shopping centre located in Valencia, from Grupo Lar and Eroski. The price was not disclosed.

In the largest disposal by Eroski to date, privately owned UK property investor Topland acquired a portfolio of 12 hypermarkets in the Basque region of Spain from retail group Eroski for EUR 361 mln in November 2008.

The deal was the largest hypermarket sale-and-leaseback transaction in Spain at the time and marked the first phase of a transaction which was to amount to more than EUR 1 bn.