US sale-and-leaseback specialist WP Carey has announced the acquisition of seven DIY retail stores in Poland for an undisclosed amount.
The stores offering a total of 70,000 m2 are triple-net leased to OBI for a term of 15 years with Eurozone CPI-based rent increases.
W. P. Carey acquired the assets from the Austrian Supernova Group, a private real estate company focused on high-quality retail properties in Central and Eastern Europe.
‘We are excited to build on our existing relationship with OBI and add seven high quality DIY retail assets to our portfolio,’ commented Christopher Mertlitz, head of European investments, WP Carey. ‘DIY retail continues to remain attractive as an asset class due to its resiliency and the fact that it has remained largely insulated from e-commerce disruption. Within retail, our investment activity is generally focused on essential retail assets in Europe, where we see more compelling opportunities given higher barriers to entry and lower retail square footage per capita relative to the US, coupled with more favourable supply fundamentals and pricing dynamics.’
Frank Albert, Supernova Group, said: ‘We typically follow a long-term buy- and- hold strategy with assets linked to our long-term partner OBI. However, given the presence of the established investor WP Carey in the Polish market and its track record and experience, we saw an opportunity to further our partnership with WP Carey and decided to step out of this high-quality retail portfolio.’
