EPISO 3, advised by Tristan Capital Partners, has acquired the Stoa Vest retail park in Arendal on the southeast coast of Norway from Nordea Life for €47m.
The deal follows Tristan’s purchase of five retail parks and four development sites in Norway in November last year, as well as a large mixed-use retail/office building in Oslo earlier in 2015.
Daniel Harris, managing director for the Nordics at Tristan, said: “Tristan has built a substantial retail portfolio in Norway over the past year, which has been helped by the weakening in the currency due to the fall in oil prices. We still have confidence in the strength of the underlying Norwegian economy and Stoa Vest is a particularly attractive addition to these investments.
“The park is the dominant shopping location in an economically robust region, where retail sales growth has run ahead of Norway’s average for the past 10 years and turnover per capita is the second highest in the country.”
Stoa Vest consists of big box units offering a total 22,500m2 of retail space that is fully let to high quality brand tenants. The park has consent from the local planning authorities for the development of 11,500m2 of additional space.
Excluded from the transaction are the Coop and Biltema stores, which are also located on the retail park. Arendal lies between Skien and Kristiansand on the main E18 highway in southeast Norway and is the largest municipality in the county of Aust-Agder, whose population is projected to grow 25% by 2040. The retail park serves a much wider catchment area.
