Tristan Capital sells three Dutch shopping centers for €105m

Tristan Capital Partners, the private equity real estate firm, has sold three shopping centers in the Netherlands for a combined fee of around €105 million.

The properties, which total 470,000 square feet, are the Piazza Center in Gorinchem, 35 kilometres south-east of Rotterdam; Brusselse Poort (pictured) in the southern city of Maastricht and Centrumplan in Geleen, near Maastricht. The buyers, all based in the Netherlands, were investment manager Dreef Beheer, private equity firm HB Capital and real estate specialists Intown Geleen respectively.

The transactions were made on behalf of Tristan’s pan-European opportunistic vehicle European Property Investors Special Opportunities (EPISO) 4. EPISO 4, which hit its €1.5 billion hard cap in July 2015, was 30 percent oversubscribed with Tristan turning away more than €500 million of unfulfilled demand.

The three Dutch shopping centers were originally part of a 15-strong Dutch retail portfolio which was purchased on behalf of EPISO 4 in December last year for €273 million from insurance firm Delta Lloyd. Tristan’s local partner Sectie5 will continue to be the asset managers for all three centers.

Ben Newman, managing director portfolio and asset management at Tristan, said: “The sale of these three non-core assets was part of our original business plan for the portfolio. We will now focus on larger properties, predominantly in the Randstad area, which have a greater value-add component that we can unlock through active asset management and repositioning.”

In September last year, Tristan, in partnership with Dutch operating partner Timeless Investments, bought the vast majority of Italian insurance giant Generali’s Dutch real estate portfolio, 39 assets in total, for €212 million.

CBRE advised Tristan on the Gorinchem and Maastricht transactions, while Houthoff Buruma were the legal advisors. Cushman & Wakefield acted as advisor on behalf of the three individual buyers.