Delta Real Estate has sold two Delta City shopping centres in Belgrade, Serbia and Podgorica, Montenegro for a total of €202.7m to a joint venture between South African Hyprop, the country's largest listed specialised shopping centre REIT, and Homestead Funds. JLL advised the vendor on the transaction. This transaction represents the largest single asset deal in south eastern Europe (SEE) in five years.
Andrew Peirson, managing director for SEE and Romania, said: “Serbia has started to become attractive to international investors after years of being overlooked compared to its south eastern Europe counterparts. We are delighted to be able to demonstrate the country's potential to Hyprop and Homestead and show them how it aligns with their broader business objectives after they had expressed their initial interest in Poland. They will reap the rewards of the strong performance of Serbia's and Montenegro's quality retail assets.“
Uros Grujic, head of capital markets SEE at JLL, said: “We haven't witnessed a transaction of this scale in many years, and it is symbolic of the increasing international investor interest in Serbia and the surrounding SEE region. The groups of buyers we saw considering the SEE region in 2015 were mainly coming from outside the traditional markets of Germany, France and the UK and this will continue as investors look towards the higher returns offered compared to core markets in Central Europe.“
In December 2015, JLL advised South African fund Atterbury on their one-third stake purchase of MPC Holdings which contains the Usce shopping centre within its portfolio.
