Schage Eiendom acquires the Norwegian shopping centre company Salto Eiendom, effective as of November 2015. A possible sale of Salto was announced in January this year. Several attractive offers were received, but the main shareholder, Schage Eiendom, decided at a late stage of the process to bid for all outstanding shares.
Pangea Property Partners and the law firm BA-HR have led the extensive and successful sales process during H1 2015. Both domestic and international investors have shown great interest for Salto Eiendom, which is the fourth largest shopping centre company in Norway. However, mid-summer Schage Eiendom decided to turn down these bids and instead buy out all other shareholders at an implied gross asset value of approx. NOK 5bn (€550 mln).
Salto is one of the largest property companies in Norway, with 19 assets totalling 307,000 m² and an expected retail turnover for 2015 at NOK 6.1bn (€ 670 mln). Since its inception in 2006, the company has built a solid retail portfolio, which today stands at 19 properties. In parallel, Salto has established a highly competent staff of 25 people at their HQ in Asker outside Oslo, together with an experienced organisation of management personnel at the shopping centres. Salto is showing great profitability and the company is ahead of budget so far in 2015.
In connection with Schage’s acquisition of Salto, Arne Vannebo (49) will leave his position as CEO and be replaced by Petter Falkgård Andersen (43) from Schage Eiendom. Falkgård Andersen has been a member of the Board of Salto since 2011 and the Head of Development 2 in Schage Eiendom since 2010. He also held this position at Sektor Gruppen until 2010 - one of Norway’s largest retail property companies, which was acquired by Citycon this year.
Source: Schage Eiendom
