Sonae, in alliance with Slovakian group JTRE, have outbid hamburg-based ECE in the race to buy the «Summit portfolio» comprised of 3 shopping centers: Gran Casa (Zaragoza), Max Center (Bilbao) and Valle Real (Santander), currently owned by Iberian Assets, a company 50% owned by fund manager CBRE GI and Sonae Sierra itself.
‘Summit’ will be one of Spain’s largest real estate transactions following the €489M sale of Unibail Rodamco’s «West» portfolio to South African investors, as reported by SpanishREIT.com.
J&T Real Estate will control 90% of the JV vehicle with Sonae controlling the remaining 10%. Their offer valued the properties at €525 million euros, implying an NIY of 5%, according to market sources. The net price will lower than €525M to account for a discount due to latent capital gains tax and capex provided for the assets, as the JV has agreed a company purchase as opposed to an asset deal.
The ‘Summit’ portfolio is comprised of 3 schemes with a combined footfall of 24 million and a GLA of c. 117,000m² of which c. 77% is leased up by general retailers, with c. 10% leased to restaurants and c. 7% to leisure operators.