Marfin Investment Group, the Greek investment powerhouse spun out of Marfin Popular Bank, has acquired a 75 percent stake in Croatian leisure and tourism firm Sunce Koncern for €155 million.
The Croatian deal – a first for MIG since raising €5.2 billion last July for its South East Europe focussed fund – is partly a-play on tourism in the country and partly a play on real estate.
Sunce owns and operates 11 hotels with 5,000 beds along the Adriatic coast under the Blue Sun Hotels & Resorts brand. It also owns a majority stake in the airport on Brac Island plus a huge development programme. According to MIG, Sunce has 860,000 square meters of land with permits in place for construction and development. Among the projects is Stubicke Toplice promising a large health tourism project with two hospitals, three hotels, as well as recreation and business facilities.
MIG says it expects the Sunce acquisition to close in the second quarter of the year.
“It represents an investment in three of MIG’s stated key sectors, (which are) tourism and leisure, healthcare and infrastructure,” said Andreas Vgenopolous, executive vice-chairman.
At the time of raising its mega fund, MIG stated some of the capital would be deployed in companies with strong real estate exposure.
True to its word, the spin-out has invested €360 million in Serbian real estate by gaining control in country’s leading department store chain, Robne Kuce Beograd, which owns 32 stores in prime retail locations. Nine of the stores are in Belgrade.
MIG and local Serb partner Verano are adopting a value-added strategy to the investment. In an interview with PEOnline.com’s sister publication PrivateEquityRealEstate.com in November, Matteo Stefanel, head of origination at MIG and head of investment banking at Marfin Popular Bank, said: “We are going to aggressively manage the retail space.”
Mig has also invested in real estate by acquiring a 50 percent stake in Greek property company Attica Akinita, a real estate investment trust listed on the Athens Stock Exchange.
In addition, Marfin estimates that portfolio company Hellenic Telecommunications Organization owns more than €1 billion of property.
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