Privately-owned shopping centre specialist Sonae Sierra has signed an agreement to create a 50-50 joint-venture with Russian builder Ost Development for the provision of property management and leasing services to Ost's development pipeline.

Privately-owned shopping centre specialist Sonae Sierra has signed an agreement to create a 50-50 joint-venture with Russian builder Ost Development for the provision of property management and leasing services to Ost's development pipeline.

Ost Development is currently involved in the construction of three projects in central Russia: Mozaica shopping and entertainment centre and the Yasenevo mixed-use project, both in Moscow, and a shopping and entertainment complex in Tula.

Mozaica, scheduled to open at end-2014, will offer more than 210 shops over 67,800 m2 of GLA.
Located along the Third Transport Ring of Moscow, Mozaica will also include 2,500 parking spaces.

'This contract with Ost Development is an important step to grow our professional services activity in the Russian market, and confirms the demand for unique specialised services in the country,' commented José Falcão Mena, Sonae Sierra director responsible for EMEA Services.

Ost Development's current development portfolio includes 0.5 million m2 of retail and mixed-use space in Moscow and Tula, as well as over 0.3 million m2 of completed retail, residential and office projects in the Russian capital and city of Norilsk.

Sonae Sierra, which owns 47 shopping centres worldwide, has been developing alliances in new markets over the past months. Earlier this year it set up a joint venture with Chinese alternative investment firm Citic Capital.

The JV offers management and leasing services to malls in China, which is currently the world's second-largest retail market after the US, with sales of consumer goods totalling €2.4 tln per year. Citic was founded in 2002 and manages more than €3 bn of diverse assets.