NEPI owns four shopping centers in Bucharest, two of which it developed itself, Vulcan Value Center and Mega Mall, and two of which it bought, Promenada Mall and Auchan Titan.
The retail space stock amounts to about 1 million square meters in Bucharest at the moment, so NEPI holds about one fifth of that.
“Bucharest remains a very attractive market in the future, especially when it comes to the retail area, which is NEPI’s focus,” Alex Morar, NEPI chief executive officer told ZF.
“If we find other opportunities we will analyze how much value they can generate for NEPI. The general strategy is to be dominant on the retail area.”
Auchan Titan is the first acquisition under Morar’s reign as CEO of NEPI, a position he took at the beginning of August, following the resignation of South African Martin Slabbert, founder and former CEO of eight years, who left to pursue another business venture.
NEPI’s biggest retail investment in Bucharest is Mega Mall, which opened in May and cost about EUR165 million to develop. The company also set a record on the local real estate market last year when it paid EUR148 million to Raiffeisen Evolution for its Promenada Mall.
The acquisition of Auchan Titan for EUR86 million and the opening of Mega Mall helped NEPI create a stronghold in the east of Bucharest, where there are no other shopping centers.
Auchan Titan has been in service for a while and as such will most likely require work to bring it up to higher standards, NEPI’s Morar says.
The seller of Auchan Titan, Aberdeen had Colliers International and law firm Biris Goran as advisers in the deal with NEPI.
“The promotion process, the negotiations with the parties interested, the selection of the investor and the closing of the deal took a normal span of time, short even, for deals of such magnitude (about six months) ,” says Robert Miklo, associate director of Colliers international.
Interest in retail properties is on the rise, he added, considering the negotiations conducted by investment funds for such properties in Romania, so new deals might follow soon.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)