London-based private equity real estate firm, GreenOak Real Estate, said today it had teamed up with Spain’s Grupo Lar to buy shopping centers and a retail park in Spain for €160 million.
The deal is expected to go through at a sale value 29 percent below the latest appraisal value in December by seller, the Dutch property company, Vastned Retail. It is the latest example of foreign, private equity capital looking for motivated sellers in the country.
Vastned sold the “secondary assets” because of “negative forecasts” for them, pressure on rental income and higher non-recoverable service charges.
It also balked at significant capital expenditure that is due in the coming years, stated as being between €15 million and €20 million.
Other reasons given by the Dutch company for selling included “oversupply” of Spanish malls in general and its strategy to concentrate on premium high street stores.
Assets in the portfolio sold included Getaffe III and Las Rosas in Madrid. Overall, the portfolio spans 1.4 million square feet of commercial space in Barcelona, Alicante, Murcia, Malaga, Madrid and Burgos.
GreenOak declined to be specific on the identity of the purchasers, but it said the firm was working with Grupo Lar on behalf of a consortium of investors and that GreenOak and Grupo Lar would jointly manage the investments.
The sale is the latest in a string of deals involving foreign capital. Just a fortnight ago, for example, Bayside Capital, a credit affiliate of US firm H.I.G. Capital revealed it had acquired 150,000 square feet of shopping space in Cuenta on the Spanish coast. The firm accessed the deal as the center was part of the Windermere-VII securitisation. That securitisation occurred in May 2006 involving initially 12 mortgage loans originated by Lehman Brothers secured by 72 commercial properties in Germany, France, Sweden, and Spain.
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