Citycon Finland Oy and Cerberus Capital Management announced that they have signed an agreement whereby Citycon will divest its shopping centres Espoontori, Tikkuri, Myllypuron Ostari, Martinlaakson Ostari and Jyväskylän Forum to an affiliate of Cerberus, one of the world's leading private investment firms, for a total value of approximately €167m. The sales price is close to the latest IFRS fair value of the assets and the price will be adjusted according to the contract terms in connection with closing of the transaction, which is expected to take place in November.
Four of the shopping centres are located in the Helsinki area and one in Jyväskylä. In total, the centres comprise approximately 61,000 m² of gross leasable area.
"This transaction is a natural step to refine our Nordic portfolio and to focus on larger grocery-anchored shopping centres in urban crosspoints. We will use the proceeds to fund our development pipeline and strengthen the balance sheet," says Marcel Kokkeel, Chief Executive Officer at Citycon.
Citycon's outlook for 2017 regarding Direct operating profit, EPRA Earnings and EPRA EPS (basic) announced on 13 July 2017 will remain unchanged.
"In addition to being the largest investor in European real estate loans, Cerberus has directly invested more than €5bn in real estate properties across Europe," says Lee Millstein, Global Head of Real Estate for Cerberus. "We are excited to expand our direct European real estate investing into the Finnish market with this acquisition. These multi-purpose properties in key, convenient areas, can serve as anchor properties for further development, and are well-positioned to benefit from solid growth in Finnish retail trade sales."
JLL has acted as Citycon's advisor in the transaction.
