W. P. Carey & Co. LLC, the global investment management company that provides long term sale leaseback and build to suit financing for companies, has announced that CPA®:17 Global, one of its publicly-held, non-traded REIT affiliates, has acquired a portfolio of retail facilities in Croatia for a total consideration of 49 million.
The transaction is W. P. Carey's second in Croatia and its second with Agrokor following a 77-million acquisition of Agrokor's Zagreb office and logistics facilities in May 2010. The retail facilities comprise a six-property portfolio of super-markets and hypermarkets mainly located in Zagreb and surrounding cities. The portfolio is leased on a long-term triple-net basis to Konzum, Agrokor's food retailing subsidiary.
Founded in 1976, Agrokor is the largest private company in Croatia and one of the largest companies among its peers in Central Eastern Europe. A vertically-integrated business with nearly 40,000 employees and almost 4 billion in revenues, Agrokor is Croatia's largest food producer, processor, distributor, and retailer.
W. P. Carey has been investing in Europe for over 10 years and, despite the limited activity by many capital providers over the last 18 months, has completed more than 430 million in European sale leaseback transactions during this period.
Jeffrey Lefleur, Executive Director of W. P. Carey, said: "This marks our second large scale transaction with Agrokor this year and underlines our commitment to investing in Eastern Europe. Our continued ability to invest in capital-constrained regions has allowed us to transact with large, stable businesses and secure attractive, long-term yields for our investors."
Ivica Todoric, Founder and President of Agrokor, said: "This transaction again affirms our comfort with W. P. Carey as a landlord to valuable, long-term operating assets of our business. We expect this relationship to strengthen as Agrokor grows in the markets of South Eastern Europe and seeks alternative sources of capital for such expansion."
Source: Pelham Bell Pottinger
