Meinl European Land Limited, an Austrian real estate holding company with property worth more than 270 million euros, last week acquired the Militari Shopping Center project developed by Belgium's Liebrecht & wooD. The Austrian holding, which is listed on the Vienna Stock Exchange, announced the deal was worth approximately 20 million euros.
The project was developed by Liebrecht & wooD, with most funds coming from individual Belgian investors. In practice, Meinl European Land Limited bought out these investors, while Liebrecht & wooD remains the project developer.
The announcement by Meinl European Land Limited specifies that the contract signed at the end of last week is for a 14,000 sqm completed area, which is long-term leased by the German Metro Group's do-it-yourself division, Praktiker. "There is also an expansion area of around 140,000 sqm," the Meinl European Land Limited's announcement explains. The project of the Austrian real estate holding, the Militari Shopping Center, is the only real estate project in Bucharest that has a Praktiker store on its tenant list, market sources say. The other Praktiker store in Romania is in the Voluntari area close to the Metro Cash & Carry store.
"The Militari Shopping Centre is in the first phase of development. Tenants include German Praktiker Group and electronics and the home appliances retail chain Domo. They concluded contracts for 15 and 10 years, respectively," Mircea Cleciu, chief executive of Neocasa real estate company, the exclusive broker of the Militari Shopping Center project, told Ziarul Financiar.
According to Meinl European Land Limited, the value of the transaction is 20 million euros. The project generates a yield of approximately 11% per year.
Liebrecht & wooD Romania officials could not be reached for comment, nor could those of the Budapest office of Meinl European Land Limited, which also oversees the Romanian business of the group.
The Meinl European Land Limited deal is the first ever to be made on the commercial segment of the Romanian real estate market. The most important transactions so far have involved office buildings (the Opera Center and Europe House acquisitions by the two Austrian investment funds CA Immo and Europolis in 2003 for an estimated price of $30 million each) and industrial estates (the acquisition of Iride Business Park in the first half of this year by yet another Austrian investment fund, Immofinanz, for an estimated price of $35-40 million).
Liebrecht & wooD started work on the Militari Shopping Center project last spring on a 200,000 sqm plot of land, 500 metres from the Bucharest-Pitesti highway near the Metro store.
The first phase of the project was begun last autumn, when German do-it-yourself store chain Praktiker, Metro's DIY division, opened its first store.
The investment in the Militari Shopping Center, estimated at well over 40 million euros, comprised three stages and involved a total of more than 61,000 sqm of commercial space and almost 11,000 sqm of storage and office space.
ionut.bonoiu@zf.ro
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