The joint venture between Granit Polus of Hungary and Heitman of the USA sells Arena Centar in Zagreb, Croatia, the largest shopping centre in Zagreb, for €235m, the largest single asset transaction in the region to date. For the purchaser, New Europe Property Investors, commercial property investor from South Africa, this deal increases their footprint of shopping centres in the region, currently comprising assets in Romania and Serbia.
Arena Centar was developed in 2010 and extends to over 60,000m². It is anchored by Interspar, P&C, H&M and Inditex.
JLL advised the owners on the sale.
Uros Grujic, Head of Capital Markets, South East Europe, JLL commented: “The level of interest in the asset was high and we received bids from a wide range of highly institutional investor groups. This proves that the SEE region is becoming a new investment destination thanks to good quality assets, combined with attractive yields across emerging economies like Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia. With debt terms becoming more attractive by the quarter, we expect to see new capital come into the region which will be targeting not only the retail segment but also other proven asset classes across South East Europe”.
Neil Lipscomb, Director, Retail Capital Markets, EMEA, JLL, said: “This transaction underlines the increasing activity of South African investors in both the SEE and CEE regions with recent investment totalling over €3bn, primarily in retail assets”.
