CCPIII, a fund advised by pan-European real estate investment manager Tristan Capital Partners, has bought the Stadlau Shopolis retail park in Vienna for around EUR 27 mln. The property was purchased from Australian investment and advisory firm Babcock and Brown (B&B).
CCPIII, a fund advised by pan-European real estate investment manager Tristan Capital Partners, has bought the Stadlau Shopolis retail park in Vienna for around EUR 27 mln. The property was purchased from Australian investment and advisory firm Babcock and Brown (B&B).
Stadlau Shopolis is located in a major retail aggregation located 14 km north of the centre of Vienna. The retail park was built in 2002 and comprises four standalone properties, with tenants including MediaMarkt, Merkur, Betten Reiter, Fressnapf Megazoo and Autoteile Unger. Over the past five years the occupancy rate in the park has risen to 97% from about 55%.
The asset was acquired by B&B at the end of the European real estate boom in 2007 as part of a larger portfolio of retail assets in Central and Eastern Europe with a view to creating a publicly quoted REIT (real estate investment trust). However, the IPO did not proceed due to adverse equity market conditions stemming from the financial crisis.
Cameron Spry, partner and head of investments at Tristan Capital, said the recent ownership history of the Shopolis retail park ‘in many ways mirrors the boom and bust experience of the European real estate investment market through the credit crunch, except this asset has been well managed since it was acquired by B&B. Therein lies the opportunity’.
He noted that Tristan, along with Blue Asset Management, would make the necessary upgrades to the property to make it a ‘core plus’ proposition for investors in Tristan’s Curzon Capital Partners III fund.
